Not sleeping enough and not sleeping well is
not OK. As a matter of fact, there is quite a
price to pay. It may surprise you to learn that
chronic sleep deprivation, for whatever
reason, significantly affects your health,
performance, safety, and pocketbook.
There are many causes of sleep deprivation.
The stresses of daily life may intrude upon
our ability to sleep well, or perhaps we trade
sleep for more work or play. We may have
medical or mental-health conditions that
disrupt our sleep, and be well aware that we
are sleep-deprived.
However, it is critically important to realize
that sleep deprivation is very often due to
unrecognized sleep disorders. After a typical
night's sleep, you may not feel restored and
refreshed and be sleepy during the day, but
be totally unaware that you are sleep-
deprived or have a sleep disorder. You might
think, "It's just the stress of work or the
kids," or you might have "always felt this
way" and had no idea that you should feel
differently. This lack of awareness compounds
the consequences, because so many people
remain undiagnosed for years.

That said, let's look at the consequences of
sleep deprivation.
In the short term:
Decreased Performance and Alertness:
Sleep deprivation induces significant
reductions in performance and alertness.
Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as
one and a half hours for just one night
could result in a reduction of daytime
alertness by as much as 32%.
Memory and Cognitive Impairment:
Decreased alertness and excessive daytime
sleepiness impair your memory and your
cognitive ability -- your ability to think and
process information.
Stress Relationships: Disruption of a bed
partner's sleep due to a sleep disorder may
cause significant problems for the
relationship (for example, separate
bedrooms, conflicts, moodiness, etc.).
Poor Quality of Life: You might, for
example, be unable to participate in certain
activities that require sustained attention,
like going to the movies, seeing your child
in a school play, or watching a favorite TV
show.
Occupational Injury: Excessive sleepiness
also contributes to a greater than twofold
higher risk of sustaining an occupational
injury.
Automobile Injury: The National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
estimates conservatively that each year
drowsy driving is responsible for at least
100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000
injuries, and 1,550 fatalities.

The good news for many of the disorders that
cause sleep deprivation is that after risk
assessment, education, and treatment,
memory and cognitive deficits improve and
the number of injuries decreases.
In the long term, the clinical consequences of
untreated sleep disorders are large indeed.
They are associated with numerous, serious
medical illnesses, including:
High blood pressure
Heart attack
Heart failure
Stroke
Obesity
Psychiatric problems, including depression
and other mood disorders
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
Mental impairment
Fetal and childhood growth retardation
Injury from accidents
Disruption of bed partner's sleep quality
Poor quality of life
Studies show an increased mortality risk for
those reporting less than either six or seven
hours per night. One study found that
reduced sleep time is a greater mortality risk
than smoking, high blood pressure, and heart
disease. Sleep disturbance is also one of the
leading predictors of institutionalization in the
elderly, and severe insomnia triples the
mortality risk in elderly men.
Remarkably, sleep loss may also be a
contributing factor to obesity. John
Winkelman, MD, PhD, medical director of the
Sleep Health Center at Brigham and Women's
Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry
at Harvard Medical School sums up this
finding up nicely: "What most people do not
realize is that better sleep habits may be
instrumental to the success of any weight
management plan." And Michael Thorpy, MD,
director of the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at
Montefiore Medical Center in New York adds,
"Any American making a resolution to lose
weight ... should probably consider a parallel
commitment for getting more sleep."

It is also important to realize the huge scope
and prevalence of these disorders; more than
85 sleep disorders are recognized by the
American Sleep Disorders Association,
affecting more than 70 million Americans. Up
to one-third of Americans have symptoms of
insomnia; however, less than 10% of those are
identified by primary-care doctors. Sleep-
related breathing disorders represent a
spectrum of abnormalities that range from
simple snoring to sleep apnea (repeated
episodes of cessation of breathing during
sleep). As highly prevalent as they are, most
cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.
Chronic snoring, for example, is associated
with an increased incidence of heart and
brain-related diseases. It is present in about
45% of the U.S. population; up to half of
those have sleep apnea.
The prevalence of sleep apnea is on par
with diabetes and asthma. More than 20
million Americans -- 24% of adult men and
9% of adult women -- are estimated to have
some degree of obstructive sleep apnea.
Only a fraction have been diagnosed and
treated.
Sleep apnea is a primary risk factor for
high blood pressure; as many as 40% of
those people are undiagnosed and
untreated for high blood pressure. Effective
treatment of sleep apnea in patients with
high blood pressure leads to a substantial
reduction in stroke risk.
Patients with moderate to severe sleep
apnea perform as poorly as drunk drivers
and have up to a 15-fold increased risk of
motor vehicle accidents.
With the wealth of information and treatment
options available for sleep deprivation, much
of the suffering, illness from the many related
diseases, increase in accident rates, and
effects on productivity, performance,
concentration, and memory can be avoided.
Increased awareness is the first step, for us
individually and the health care community.
Some researchers suggest that sleep
deprivation should be recognized with the
same seriousness that has been associated
with the societal impact of alcohol.





www.m.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/important-sleep-habits