our lack of sleep - mindstrengthbalance.com · approximately 20% of vehicle accidents have sleep...

What happens when we don't sleep. View this email in your browser.

Gustave Dore, The Prince Approaches the Sleep Palace

Lincoln Stoller, PhD, 2018. This work is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

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Our Lack of SleepThere is a medical approach to sleep, and an holistic approach. Medicine

Why We Sleep, And If We Don't https://mailchi.mp/e75425677cdb/why-we-sleep-and-if-we-don...

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approaches sleep as something that is either best left alone, or in need ofintervention. The holistic approach considers sleep as an integral part of one'sstate of being, something that is part of an array of relationships within yourbody.

The holistic approaches are either the scientific, or therapeutic. The scientificlooks to understand; the therapeutic, to enhance. My work is largelytherapeutic, but I read a lot of the science.

Many of the consequences of insufficient sleep are highlighted in MatthewWalker's illuminating and up-to-date, popular-scientific review. His 2017 book istitled, Why We Sleep, Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. The extractsI'm quoting come from his penultimate chapter, "Sleep and Society."

A Bleary New Age

100 years ago, virtuallyeveryone slept morethan six hours eachnight. Now, 30% of thepopulation get less than6 hours of sleep eachnight. Only 35% getmore than therecommended 7 hours.

More than half the population (65%) are officially sleep-deprived. Many peopleattempt to "binge sleep" in order to recover their sleep deficit, but this is notsuccessful. There is ongoing physical, mental, and cognitive damage fromwhich you do not recover. The result is chronic poor performance, ill health, androughly 4 years premature death.

"There remains a contrived, fortified, arrogance in many business culturesfocused on the uselessness of sleep." This is in spite of an average productivityloss per employee of $2000 each year, and up to $3,500 each for the moresleep deprived. Combining the Gross Domestic Products of the US and


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Canada, the total annual lost productivity is US$ 450 billion, or roughly 2.5% ofthe GDP.

Industrial Safety

Two of our worst industrial accidentswere due to lack of sleep, and wereentirely preventable. The meltdownat the Chernobyl reactor, and thegrounding of the Exxon Valdez. Thelater was not due to a drunk captain.It was discovered to be due to thefalling asleep of an exhausted 3rdMate who was piloting at the time.

Approximately 20% of vehicle accidents have sleep deprivation as a cause,making sleep a factor in more than 100,000 crashes, resulting in 6,550 deathsand 80,000 injuries annually in the US.

Hospital Care

"Throughout the course of their medical residence, one in five residents willmake a sleepless-related medical error that causes significant, liable harm to apatient. One in twenty residents will kill a patient due to lack of sleep... Manyhundreds of people are needlessly losing their lives every year becauseresidents are not allowed to get the sleep they need... Medical errors are thethird-leading cause of death among Americans after heart attacks and cancer."


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"After 22 hours withoutsleep, humanperformance is impairedto the same level as thatof someone who islegally drunk."

"If you are the patient under the knife of an attending physician who has notbeen allowed at least a six-hour sleep opportunity the night prior, there is a170% increased risk of that surgeon inflicting a serious surgical error on you,such as organ damage or major hemorrhaging, relative to the procedure theywould conduct when they have slept adequately."

School

"More than 80% of public high schools in the US begin before 8:15AM, andalmost 50% of those start before 7:20AM. School buses for a 7:20AM start timeusually begin picking up kids at around 5:45AM. As a result, some children andteenagers must wake up at 5:30 to 5:15AM, or even earlier, and do so five daysout of every seven, for years on end."


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"Keep in mind that 5:15 to ateenager is not the same as 5:15 toan adult. The circadian rhythm ofteenagers shifts forward dramaticallyby one to three hours. So really, thequestion is, if you are an adult, couldyou concentrate and learn anythingafter having been forcefully wokenup at 3:15AM, day after day afterday?"

"Would you be in a cheerful mood? Would you find it easy to get along withyour coworkers, and conduct yourself with grace, tolerance, respect, and apleasant demeanor?"

"Children with longer total sleep times develop superior IQ, with brighterchildren having slept between 40 and 50 minutes more than those who went onto develop a lower IQ. It was found that delaying school start times by 1 hour –allowing students more sleep and better alignment with their unchangeablebiological rhythms – returned an SAT profit of 212 points. That improvement willchange which tier of university those students go to, potentially altering theirsubsequent life trajectories as a consequence."

Mental Health

"Forced by the hand of early school start times, this state of chronic sleepdeprivation is especially concerning considering that adolescence is the mostsusceptible phase of life for beginning chronic mental illnesses, such asdepression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and suicidality."


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"Back in the 1960s, when thefunctions of sleep were still largelyunknown, researchers selectivelydeprived young adults of REM sleep,and thus dreaming for a week, whileallowing them non-REM sleep... Bythe third day participants wereexpressing signs of psychosis... Onlythen did scientists realize that REMsleep is what stands betweenrationality and insanity."

"When Teton County Wyoming enacted a change in school start times from7:35 to 8:55AM, there was an astonishing 70% reduction in traffic accidents in16- to 18-year-old drivers. These publicly available findings... were largelyswept under the rug."

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

"If you make a composite of ADHD symptoms and then stripe away the ADHDlabel, these symptoms are nearly identical to those caused by lack of sleep.Take an under-slept child to the doctor and describe these symptoms, and whatwould you imagine the doctor is diagnosing them with, and medicating themfor? Not deficient sleep, but ADHD."

"As the state of chronic sleep deprivation buildsover time, the child will look evermore ADHD-likein temperament, cognitively, emotionally, andacademically. Those children who are fortunateenough to have the sleep disorder recognized,more often than not prove that they do not haveADHD... Based on recent surveys and clinicalevaluations, we estimate that more than 50% ofall children diagnosed with ADHD actually have a


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sleep disorder."

"Many parents remain oblivious of the state of childhood sleep deprivation, sooften undervaluing this biological necessity. Well over 70% of parents believetheir children get enough sleep, when in reality, less than 25% of childrenbetween the ages of 11 and 18 obtain the necessary amount."

Drugs

"There is more irony here than meets the eye. Most people know the names ofthe most common ADHD medicines: Adderall and Ritalin. But few know whatthese drugs actually are. Adderall is amphetamine with certain salts mixed in,and Ritalin is a similar stimulant called methylphenidate."

"Amphetamine and methylphenidate are two of the most powerful drugs weknow of to prevent sleep, and keep the brain of an adult (or child) wide awake.This is the very last thing that such a child needs."


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"There are people sitting in prison cells, who have been there for decades,because they were caught selling amphetamines to minors on the street.However, we seem to have no problem at all allowing pharmaceuticalcompanies to broadcast prime-time commercials highlight ADHD andpromoting the sale of amphetamine-based drugs."

Sleep deprivation is not taken seriously. Our competitive, insecure, 24/7, self-injuring culture accepts sleep-induced ill health – as it accepts cigarettes,alcohol, poor diet, bad behavior, and lack of exercise – as something we canmake up for some other time.

But the bottom line is this: if you're not getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night,then your mind is numb, memory poor, performance flawed, intellectual andemotional IQ reduced, safety jeopardized, sexual function impaired, immunesystem compromised, and lifespan shortened by 5%. Do you think you're goingto "make this up" later? You're not.


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Gustave Dure, Satan Smitten by Michael

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our lack of sleep - mindstrengthbalance.com · approximately 20% of vehicle accidents have sleep...

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