![]() While the average of 6.8 hours is just a catnap short of the 7 or more recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine for optimal health and well-being, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than one-third of Americans regularly sleep too little. On average, Americans today sleep an hour less per night than was the case in the 1940s, according to Gallup polling. Block was involved in a study with other investigators at UCLA that showed that disrupted light schedules led to Type 2 diabetes in rat models.Īt the minimum, many of us are almost always tired. While occasionally knocking your internal clock out of sync might result in some unproductive afternoons, chronic disruption carries a heavier toll, including the potential for cognitive, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems. Hugh Kretschmer The Heavy Toll of Too Little Sleep To those who can’t avoid staring into electronic devices at night, Block recommends at least using the devices’ settings to dim the light emitted and shift it to warmer colors. “And a lot of that is blue light, the wavelengths the biological clock system is most sensitive to.” Among other things, bright light inhibits the production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, whose levels are otherwise intended to rise as darkness falls. “If you look at satellite photographs, it’s striking how much brighter the world is becoming as a result of how much more artificial lighting is used at night than in earlier times,” Block says. A leading expert in the neural mechanisms by which organisms adjust sleep and wakefulness to the day and night cycle, Block argues that recent developments such as international travel, more irregular work hours and mealtimes, and increased light exposure at night disrupt the body’s natural state of equilibrium. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block notes that aspects of modern life threaten to wreak havoc with our circadian rhythm - the sophisticated internal body clock that has evolved in humans and nearly all other living things in response to the 24-hour cycle of light and darkness. Sleep is “a modifiable risk factor,” he says, enabling us to influence the divide between wellness and disease. Cole Professor of Neuroscience and a past president of the North American Sleep Research Society. “UCLA faculty are internationally recognized for leadership in sleep research and sleep medicine,” says Ralph Lydic, the University of Tennessee’s Robert H. Just what are the consequences of chronically getting too little sleep? How can we ensure that we get more? What solutions does science offer? A Modifiable Risk FactorĪt UCLA, dozens of researchers are exploring questions about sleep and its relationship to health. So we plow through, often at half speed, yearning to renew our vital forces but rarely doing so. Today, some 75 years later, most of America’s work culture hasn’t caught on to Churchill’s wisdom. “Nature has not intended mankind to work from 8 in the morning until midnight without the refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces,” he explained. E ven when he was leading Britain to victory in World War II, Winston Churchill had to have his early afternoon naps.
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