Why We Need Sleep Even More Than We Think

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Why We Need Sleep Even More Than We Think

By Michael Haederle, Miller-McCune.com. Posted December 9, 2008.

New reports warn of serious health woes for those those who don't get enough shut-eye.



This article originally appeared on Miller-McCune.com.

Sleep. It's something everyone likes to do and can't seem to do without.

Yet many Americans do with a lot less than they'd like. Suffering from chronic insomnia, they know all too well the deadening fatigue that follows interrupted sleep. But while the mental misery of sleeplessness is well documented, some eye-opening new reports warn serious health woes may await those who don't get enough shut-eye.

Sleep researchers at UCLA have found, for example, that losing even a single night's sleep causes the body's immune system to turn on healthy tissues. That may implicate sleep deficits in cardiovascular disease, some cancers, obesity, arthritis, diabetes and various autoimmune disorders.

Heavy snoring was found to be an independent risk factor for carotid atherosclerosis, raising the risk for stroke, according to research done at the University of Sydney in Australia, and a study by Dutch scientists showed that insomnia compromised cognitive processes related to verbal fluency, actually damping down the activity of the brain's prefrontal cortex.

Researchers used to regard lost sleep as more of an inconvenience than a health risk, says Dr. Chiara Cirelli, a sleep researcher in the department of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "Now we know that sleep restriction for even a week has very profound cognitive effects."

It's enough to keep one up at night. More than a third of adults report having had some insomnia symptoms within a given year, according to the American Insomnia Association, and 10 to 15 percent of adults suffer from chronic insomnia. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/110997/why_we_need_sleep_even_more_than_we_think/

[Mari333]

1. oh great. i just stayed up all night. oops. n/t

[SoCalDem]

2. I do every night

:(

doze from 4 am to about 7.. then again from 8-10 or so..and that's it for me:(

On the rare occasions when I DO fall sound asleep, someone always manages to call me on the phone & wake me up:grr: