What Happens When We Don't Get Enough Sleep?

If we don’t get enough sleep, it has serious effects on our brain's ability to function. After just one night without sleep, concentration becomes more difficult and our attention span shortens considerably with increasing feelings of grumpiness, grogginess, irritability and forgetfulness.

With continued lack of sufficient sleep, the part of the brain that controls language, memory, planning and sense of time is severely affected, practically shutting down. In fact, 17 hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (two glasses of wine) which is the legal drink driving limit in the UK. 

Sleep is actually far more important to us than exercise or diet -  we would die of sleep deprivation before we die of hunger. And sleep deprivation is a significant contributory factor to heart disease, stress, memory loss, depression, obesity, attention deficit disorder and the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.  On a daily basis driver fatigue contributes to 20% of fatal road traffic accidents.

So with all this data to illustrate just how important it is for people to get a really good night’s sleep, surely having the right bed should be of paramount importance to everyone when an incredible 62% of us claim to experience poor “broken sleep”?

Why Do We Sleep?

Our lives are inextricably connected with beds and sleep. More often than not we are conceived, born and die in a bed and in between it is estimated we spend at least a third of our lives asleep in one – that’s some 26 years, which compares to 11.5 yrs at work and 11 years watching TV.  However Napoleon, Florence Nightingale and Margaret Thatcher famously got by on four hours a night and Thomas Edison claimed it was waste of time!

But why do we sleep? This has baffled scientists for centuries and the answer is, no one is really sure. Some believe that sleep gives the body a chance to recuperate from the day's activities but, in reality, the amount of energy saved by sleeping for even eight hours is miniscule - about 50k Cal, the same amount of energy in a piece of toast.

Human beings seem to sleep anywhere between 5 and 11 hours per night, with an average of about 7.5, but animals also need to sleep too: elephants make do on just 3 hours, unsurprisingly chimpanzees are more similar to us with around 9 hours, cats need 12 and pythons an amazing 18 hours. All that slithering around must be truly exhausting.

What we do know for sure is that while we are asleep:
·        our body heals and repairs itself
·        our spinal discs re-hydrate and we get up in the morning up to 1 inch taller (we lose up to an inch in  height during the course of a day as the spine and gravity and exercise compress the discs)
·        our brains carry out maintenance, archiving and data processing
·        our immune systems strengthen
·        we get an emotional reload
·        it is the ONLY time children and teenagers grow

How important is sleep for you? Does it feel like a necessity or a waste of time?