More than 1/3 of American’s are getting less than 6 hours of sleep each night. Compare that to just over 1/10 back in 1942. The worldwide data is not much better.
How much sleep do we Need?
- Human Infants need 16 hours/day
- Children ages 5-12 need 10-11 hours/night
- Teens need 8-10 hours
- Adults need 7-9 hours
- Seniors need 6-8 hours
People who don’t get enough sleep are:
- 20% increased mortality
- 27% higher rate of Obesity
- More Likely to become carb-addicted and to
- Consume 500 more calories per day
- A 30-40% reduction in Glucose Metabolism
- 62% increased risk of Breast Cancer
- 48% increased risk of Heart Disease
- 5X higher risk of Diabetes
- 3X increased risk of suffering from a Cold because of decreased Immunity
- 4X greater risk of Stroke
- 5X increased risk suffering from clinical Depression
- Impairment of the brain’s ability to remove toxins related to Alzheimer’s development
Sleep deprivation can impair your driving:
- 100,000 car accidents per year
- 1,500 car accident related deaths
- 71,000 auto injuries
- $12.5 billion in accident related money losses
Other Sleep Stats:
- Corporate productivity: $63 billion/year lost from sleep deprivation (Harvard Health News, 2011)
- Disasters: Experts now believe sleep deprivation played a role in:
- the Exxon Valdez oil spill,
- Staten Island Ferry crash, and
- Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown, among others.
- among other disasters.
- Mood & Emotion: 60% more reactive
- Medical errors: increase dramatically with long hours.
- Students: later start times result in higher test scores, less depression, and 70% fewer car crashes.
- Only about 50% of people who try a CPAP machine for apnea continue to use it regularly.
- 60M sleep medications were prescribed by US physicians in 2011.