While I am usually early to bed and early to rise with good sleep and plenty of energy throughout the day, my sleep has been disturbed the last 14 months because of a shoulder injury. The forced change in sleep positions has led to sleep frustrations. As have middle-of-the-night noises in our home.
Our 18 year old’s evening seems to begin about the time I head to bed. Bailey is often taking his shower (dropping the shampoo bottle) and looking through his bathroom cabinets and drawers (like a bull in a China shop) about the time I stumble to my bathroom for my middle of the night “health break”.
This past Sunday morning, as I was poking Bailey to rouse him during our pastor’s sermon, I mentally wrestled with our family’s need for sleep because sleep Really Does Matter.
There truly is an app for everything. Recently, my husband downloaded a sleep analysis app. While he sleeps, his phone monitors his movement and charts his sleep cycles and quality. This morning he announced, “Last night I was down to 67% sleep quality from 98% two nights ago.” Statistically, he’s in for a long day and if he goes several nights without good rest, he’ll suffer even more significantly.
In 2006, the Harvard Health Publication reported that 75% of American adults have some difficulty sleeping at least 2 nights in any given week and 25% report chronic sleep difficulties. Those men and women may well suffer from the following problems, all of which have been linked to sleep deprivation:
Mental Alertness: poor attention, poor decision making and problem solving ability and speed, reduced creativity, poor memory consolidation, and decreased productivity
Emotional Well Being: increased anger, impulsivity, depression, apathy, and mood swings
Physical Health: hormone imbalance (hungrier, sluggish, higher blood sugar, abnormal growth, poor muscle mass), compromised immunity, limited healing and repair of the body’s daily wear and tear, and because of less time to naturally heal itself, heart disease, high blood pressure, and chronic inflammation
The “microsleep” Bailey experienced Sunday during church (5-10 seconds of nodding off) was his body’s way of communicating that it did not sleep well the night before.
Microsleep is responsible for lack of attention during school and poor productivity in the workplace. American Psychology Today states that 60% of grade school and high school children report being tired in school and 15% admit to falling asleep in class.
Microsleep is also responsible for the less easily overlooked errors made by sleep deprived physicians and 100,000+ drivers who fall asleep at the wheel annually. The National Highway Safety Administration and the Department of Transportation report an estimated $15.9 million in direct costs, 100,000+ accidents, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 deaths annually due to sleep related accidents.
Do the adults in your home get their recommended 6-8 hours of sleep every night? Do your children get their recommended 8-10 hours? If not, you’re in good company :). How can we better manage our down time to assure our families’ get their much needed sleep? Join the conversation and reply using the button above this post.
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