The Australian Shortage of snooze nothing to sneeze at Taking work home with you can affect sleep and also your productivity SEAN PARNELL 12:00AM NOVEMBER 9, l Maybe it’s the kids waking early. Or the curlews crying out through the night. Or the mozzies or the dogs or the developers or the hoons or the tricky bladder or the leaf blower or the ill-fitting pyjamas or the chainsaw snorers. Whatever or whoever the culprit, try to maintain a restful and relaxing environment to give yourself the best chance of sleeping through the night. According to the Sleep Health Foundation, children aged three to five should be getting 10 to 13 hours of sleep every night, dropping back to nine to 10 hours between the ages of six and 13. By adulthood, we should be getting seven to nine hours’ sleep, perhaps slightly less for those over 65. But quality is as important as quantity, and people need to take sleep seriously. Taking work home with you can affect sleep and your productivity, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Researchers from the University of South Australia, The Netherlands and Japan studied 230 healthcare workers across two years to determine the impact of after-hours work-related activities. While reading, watching television or listening to music can help people prepare for sleep, work can have the opposite effect — unless it is housework, cooking or looking after children. “These latter activities are both resource-depleting and enhancing, helping to both disengage from the job and get a better night’s sleep,” says one of the study’s authors, Jan de Jonge from UniSA. Maureen Dollard, from UniSA’s Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety says, work should be kept at work. “Managers need to create a climate in which working beyond regular hours is not ‘business as usual’, as taking work home impedes cognitive function and productivity,” Dollard says. A Senate committee is holding an inquiry into sleep health awareness in Australia following a referral from federal Health Minister Greg Hunt. The inquiry, which has received 113 submissions and will take further testimony in public hearings, will look at causes, education, treatment options and research. Researchers from the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre have told the inquiry there should be a national sleep strategy with more funding for research and a better-resourced workforce to be able to act on problems sooner. With evidence of a link between sleep disturbance and cognitive decline and depression, they argue such a strategy is crucial “to optimise healthy ageing and potentially avert the tsunami of dementia approaching, the cost of which is projected to increase to $1 trillion in the next 40 years”. The Sleep Health Foundation has warned the inquiry that the problem is growing and younger adults are disproportionately affected. “While some of the difficulty can be explained by clinical sleep disorders and other health issues, much appears to be due to work pressures or lifestyle choices that restrict sleep to create more time for work, family, social and leisure pursuits, including social media,” its submission says. “The consequences are far-reaching and expensive: sleep-restricted individuals have impaired alertness, think less quickly and accurately, and are less vigilant, more irritable and prone to depressed mood than when sufficiently rested. “Over time, health and longevity suffer: virtually every aspect of our physiology is impacted by inadequate sleep, including psychological, cardiovascular and immune functions. Apart from the health and social impacts of sleep loss, productivity, road safety, absenteeism and errors at work are impacted.” The increased focus on sleep has brought on an increase in people trying to help but also has left authorities wary of charlatans. A Medicare review previously has raised concerns about the use of sleep tests of questionable clinical value, sometimes leading to patients being sold expensive continuous positive airway pressure machines, which may not be the best treatment options. Last financial year, a consultant sleep and respiratory physician agreed to repay $2 million in Medicare rebates after questions about inappropriate practice, while another physician agreed to repay $730,000. In January, the Department of Health wrote to 79 physicians with particularly high rates of billing and by the end of September, 28 of them had acknowledged incorrect Medicare claims totalling more than $477,000. Do your homework, find a doctor you trust and get a second opinion if you need to. If you’re promised an expensive cure, maybe sleep on it first. If you can
One can use those disposable earplugs which are found industry wide in any industrial safety or supplies shop, made from foam which you squeeze between fingers to compress prior to insertion in ear canal. They work a treat if attempting sleep in a noisy environment. Not uncomfortable. Certainly adds to quality of sleep if a light sleeper. Now for some reason, Asian women (the ones I have met) can fall asleep in a minute, in any position, and during a howling huricane, don't know how they do it. Maybe it's my company
For a good state of body and well-being, need to keep the time we spend on rest. Healthy sleep is the key to a good day.
Too much sleep linked to a greater risk of disease and death, study finds: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/04/heal...d-to-death-and-diseases-study-intl/index.html The recommended amount of sleep for adults is six to eight hours a night. Sleeping more than those hours is associated with an increased risk of death and cardiovascular diseases, says a global study published Wednesday in the European Heart Journal. Looking at data from 21 countries, across seven regions, the research team found that people sleeping more than the recommended upper limit of eight hours increased their risk of major cardiovascular events, like stroke or heart failure, as well as death by up to 41%. But a possible reason for this could be that people have underlying conditions causing them to sleep longer, which in turn could raise the risk of cardiovascular disease or mortality, explain the authors of the study. The team, led by Chuangshi Wang, a Ph.D. student at McMaster and Peking Union Medical Collegein China, also identified a rising risk among daytime nappers. "Daytime napping was associated with increased risks of major cardiovascular events and deaths in those with [more than] six hours of nighttime sleep but not in those sleeping [less than] 6 hours a night," Wang said. In those who underslept, "a daytime nap seemed to compensate for the lack of sleep at night and to mitigate the risks," Wang explained. Previous studies into this topic were mainly carried out in North America, Europe and Japan. The new study brings a global picture. But the findings are observational, meaning the cause of this association remains unknown. "Even though the findings were very interesting they don't prove cause and effect," said Julie Ward, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the study. Having less sleep -- under six hours -- was also shown to increase these risks by 9%, compared with people who slept for the recommended six to eight hours, but this finding was not considered to be statistically significant by the team. In 2014, 35.2% of American adults reported not getting enough sleep with less than seven hours per night, according to the CDC. Signs in your sleep The study asked 116,632 adults between the age of 35 and 70 from 21 countries about their sleepinghabits. Participants were then followed up over an average of 7.8 years. The team found that for every 1,000 people sleeping the recommended six to eight hours per night, 7.8 developed cardiovascular disease or died each year. This rose to 9.4 in people who slept six or fewer hours a night. Francesco Cappuccio, professor of cardiovascular medicine and epidemiology at Warwick University, who was not involved in this study, has done several studies into sleep and its effect on our health. He says that a lack of sleep is "definitely associated with an increased risk of death." "If you sleep less for a long time you are more prone to develop chronic disease," Cappuccio said, adding that short sleep duration has been shown to increase high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. However, the findings for those who underslept were not found to be statistically significant, and the greatest risk was instead seen among those who overslept. For those sleeping eight to nine hours, 8.4 per 1,000 peopledeveloped cardiovascular disease or died each year. This rose even further in those sleeping nine to 10 hours (10.4 per 1,000) and again among those sleeping more than 10 hours (14.8 per 1,000). This equates to an increase in risk of a 5%, 17% and 41%, respectively, compared with people who slept the recommended amount of hours. But Wang pointed out that too much sleep could be a marker for other causes of cardiovascular diseases and death. Cappuccio agreed, adding that "it's not that long sleep causes death or ill health" but that ill health will cause you to sleep more. Cappuccio mentioned that people who have an undetected illness may suffer from an extension of sleep. If someone has an underlying cancer, for example, they will be more fatigued and debilitated and will tend to sleep longer. The study's main takeaway is that the optimal duration of estimated sleep is six to eight hours per day for adults, Wang explained. It is "very important to point out that there are some very simple things you can do to help you sleep better at night," Ward said, advising people to avoid caffeine in the afternoon or evenings, as well as alcohol and nicotine, which can disrupt sleep patterns. Exercise and a balanced diet can help, she added. 'Napping could reflect underlying ill-health' Daytime napping was found to be common in theMiddle East, China, Southeast Asia and South America and was associated with higher risks of death or cardiovascular problems in those who also got the recommended hours of sleep at night or more. But, this was not the case for people who slept under six hours per night. "In these individuals, a daytime nap seemed to compensate for the lack of sleep at night and to mitigate the risks," Wang said. But for those who slept enough at night, "daytime napping was associated with increased risks of major cardiovascular events and deaths," she said. Cappuccio has previously conducted research into daily napping among British adults. "Napping could reflect underlying ill-health (fatigue, tiredness) eventually leading to morbidity and mortality, could be a proxy for sleep deprivation, as a compensatory catch-up mechanism, or could also be a symptom of circadian misalignment," he said. Monitoring sleeping patterns The study had several limitations, Wang pointed out, as participants were asked to self-report their sleeping patterns and the sleep duration was based on the space between going to bed and waking up. The team also did not collect data on sleep disorders, such as insomnia, which could have an impact on sleep and also affect health, the paper states. Wang explained that it is usually not feasible to accurately measure sleep time in large population studies. The researchers hope that their results will encourage doctors to ask their patients about sleeping patterns when discussing general lifestyle factors, to identify any potential underlying health problems. Salim Yusuf,professor of medicine at McMaster University and the principal investigator of the PURE study, from which the participants were chosen, said, "For doctors, including questions about the duration of sleep and daytime naps in the clinical histories of your patients may be helpful in identifying people at high risk of heart and blood vessel problems or death."