Does Society Value Sleep as Much as it Should?

When people think of a healthy lifestyle, what comes to mind first is exercise, a balanced diet, and reduced stress. What people often fail to recognize is that sleep is as important, if not more important than all of these things. Some of the most common things people think is true about sleep are that you need 8 hours a night, it is something that can be “made up” for, and that the solution for trouble with falling asleep is always medication. None of these “facts” are actually true, they are merely myths.

Insomnia and sleep disorders are a very big problem in America, but this might mostly be because many people are uneducated about why you need sleep and what happens while your eyes are shut. Sleep can also be very frustrating for people, especially when they have trouble falling asleep. If this is the case, it often results in trying too hard, which will not help solve the problem. People notice that their problems don’t usually go away, but they don’t understand why.

One reason for the large amount of insomnia and sleep disorders in America, other than a lack of education, is the damage we have done to our natural clock. Due to all innovations of the industrial revolution, humans’ modern life is very different, obviously, from how it was hundreds of years ago. This also means our bodies have needed to make adaptations, because they were not made to do the things we do. This suggests that when the world began to develop, our habits needed to change to fit this new lifestyle, and ever since then our sleep has been affected negatively.

When you are asleep, your body does much more than simply “rest.” Many things happen while you are not conscious, including brain activity, repairing of tissue, and restoration of energy. Scientists have discovered that there are four stages of sleep, and the body does something different in each.

During the first stage, people can be easily wakened. This is also when muscles relax. In stage two, body temperature drops, breathing and heart rate becomes irregular, brain waves slow, and sense of place is lost. In the third stage, blood pressure drops, hormones are released, tissue grows or is repaired, energy is restored, and brain waves slow even more. The last stage is called REM or rapid eye movement, which is when the brain is active, meaning dreams may take place. Breathing and heart rate are irregular during this time, and muscles are also paralyzed (Schocker).

Having a good understanding of what happens while the body is asleep is important in order to understand why not getting quality sleep is unhealthy. If someone consistently doesn’t make it to the third stage of sleep, this means it is likely that their body isn’t getting enough time to cleanse and regenerate itself, leaving them more prone to disease. When someone frequently doesn’t reach the REM stage, it has been proven to cause irritability, difficulty concentrating, and anxiety (Obringer). Side effects of a lack of all four stages of sleep can range from daily fatigue to weight gain or even, in extreme cases, heart problems. If you want to avoid these, there is a simple answer: have a consistent sleep schedule and remember that quality is more important than quantity.

There have been many studies on how sleep is different now than it was before the industrial revolution. Many scientists look to hunter gatherer societies to do their research, because they are not influenced by technology of the world, and this could mean their sleep patterns are similar, if not identical, to our ancestors.

In one particular study of the hunter gatherers of the Hadza and San tribes in Africa, scientists found some beliefs about sleep to be false. Many people think that they need 8, if not more, hours of sleep a night. However, the people in these tribes had an average of 6.5 hours of sleep a night, and they weren’t suffering from insomnia or chronic disease (O’Connor). This shows that Americans are getting enough sleep, however the quality of sleep we are getting is not sufficient. Another myth is that our ancestors used to go to bed when the sun set, and wake up when the sun rose again. This was proven to be false in the study, and instead, researchers found that people would go to bed when the temperature dropped, and wake up when it got warmer (O’Connor). Because our homes’ temperatures are regulated, this could be a reason why insomnia is so prominent in modern society.

Aside from these two myths, there are many more, but some things people say about sleep are also very true. For example, the use of technology (screens) before bed is also a reason some people can not fall asleep. Melatonin in the brain is released at night, through a complicated process in the body. The suprachiasmatic nuclei is a part of the brain that acts as a clock in a way. The genes in this region, called clock genes, vibrate throughout the day, which is the same as the solar day because of light from the eyes. At night, when the clock genes are less active, the nuclei sends a signal to the pineal gland in the brain, which initiates the production of melatonin. When people use screens before bed, the light from the screen prevents the clock genes from slowing down, preventing the production of melatonin (Society for Endocrinology).

Individually, although we can’t remove the regulation of temperature from our homes or control the time we have to wake up in the morning, there are still some things we can do. Instead of watching television or checking Twitter before bed, try replacing screens with a good book or some music an hour before bed. It is also important to prioritize going to bed at a reasonable time each night, in order to create a sleep pattern that the body can get used to.

As a society, even if we all recognized the importance of sleep, it is unreasonable to assume everyone can make it their first priority, because our daily lives are already constructed in a way that makes it hard to have optimal sleep. Work and school for many people starts at the break of dawn, which means to get a good amount of sleep, you would need to go to bed much earlier. This isn’t always a possibility either, because of extracurricular activities, homework, and other tasks that are obligatory. However, although we can’t change all these things at once, we could start by pushing for later start times for school and some jobs, and start taking on less things at a time to give ourselves the time we need to decrease our daily fatigue.

To live a healthy life, people can’t expect to only exercise and eat well. We need to prioritize sleep as much as, if not over other things in our lives, in order to be the healthiest we can be, on a personal level as well as for society as a whole. Policy makers, employers, and school districts need to recognize that while it is hard to make sleep a priority, it could lead to much better health, which could lower the health care costs for our society.