The physical and emotional discomfort associated with sleep deprivation is a common experience for all of us who have suffered an occasional sleepless night or pulled an "all-nighter" in order to finish a paper. Most people believe that simply getting one good night's sleep will erase the impact of sleep deprivation. In addition, most of us believe that losing "a few hours sleep" doesn't really affect us. We know that 8 hours of sleep a night is recommended but we think we are unaffected as long as we get 5 or 6 hours of sleep per night. A growing body of scientific evidence is accumulating to indicate that these assumptions are not true and that even partial sleep deprivation (the loss of 2-3 hours of sleep per night) has a significant impact on human health, behavior and performance.
Studies now indicate that even one night of partial sleep loss has an impact on psychomotor performance. Losing as little as one hour of sleep may have far reaching effects and has been proven by studies which have demonstrated significant increases in motor vehicle accidents during the week following the onset of daylight savings time. Sleep related car accidents in the U.S. are estimated at 10,000 per year - 87% of these accidents are fatal.
Research has shown that the consequences of even partial sleep loss can include:
Immunologic consequences rendering a person more susceptible to infection and/or less able to effectively control an infection.
Mood changes including fatigue, listlessness, and irritability, decrease in self-esteem, lowered coping skills and depression.
Social consequences including increase in interpersonal conflict and decreased effectiveness at work and school.
Impaired hand-eye coordination and fine motor precision skills.
Impaired performance in emergency situations requiring quick reflex responses.
Slowing of mental processes including impairment in attentional focus, memory, learning, reasoning ability, problem solving and creative thinking.
Increased likelihood of accidents.
Weight gain.
Decreased athletic performance.
- Medical conditions including cardiac rhythm disturbances are more common with periods of even partial sleep deprivation. Seizure thresholds are lowered in epileptics and arthritic conditions are more symptomatic when even partial sleep deprivation is present.
It is clear that adequate sleep is an absolute necessity for wellness.