A quarter of working-age Britons admitted that they only get about five hours of sleep at night, a recent study in the United Kingdom revealed. The study said respondents were worried that missing out on sleep could be harmful to their health.
Psychologists from the University of Leeds say that some people need seven hours and more of sleep to function at their best during the day. Lack of sleep has also been linked to depression, anxiety, diabetes, impaired work performance, increased risks of heart disease and accidents.
"The increasing demands of modern life, social media and connected technologies may affect the quality and quantity of our sleep and pose a serious and detrimental threat to health," said Dr. Anna Weighall, lead researcher of the study.
Researchers conducted an online survey among a small group of 1,024 Britons who were 18 to 80 years old. They found that participants who were 30 to 50 years old experienced striking levels of sleep deficiency because of work and family stress.
Weighall said that sleep deprivation can lead to serious negative health outcomes such as obesity, cardiovascular problems and diabetes.
The researchers also found that roughly three percent of the respondents who were 30 to 50 years old often plan to only sleep five hours a night while some did hope they could get eight to nine hours. Almost 25 percent of this age group admitted they only manage to sleep for less than five hours.
Weighall said that they asked participants about concrete questions such as their previous night's sleep rather than the most common method of asking them about their sleep patterns. She said that asking about sleep patterns can be affected by memory biases. They compared the participants' answers to the average hours of sleep they got during the month before they answered the survey.
Weighall added that it was important to examine people's expectations of how much sleep they're going to get compared to how much sleep they actually get. An analysis of it can contribute to how health officials are going to help people change their sleep behavior, she said.
Meanwhile, another study noted that people should at least stick to a fixed and good sleep routine to take care of their health.
Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan, author of the study, explained that a person's body clock or circadian timer runs on a rhythm that functions well on a regular routine.
She said that getting good sleep habits actually neurologically program the mind to wake up at the exact time, and that a good sleep routine includes rising at a fixed time each day, going to bed before midnight and resisting the urge to stay in bed for just a few more minutes.
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