Good sleep is essential for health.

We all know that diet and exercise are essential for good health, but a good night's sleep is also high on the list - right up there at the top with exercise and diet.

A new study lead by sleep expert Professor Dirk-Jan Dijk from the University of Surrey and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, states that:

"Insufficient sleep is increasingly recognized as contributing to a wide range of health problems.

"Multiple studies have shown self-reported short sleep duration - defined in most studies as less than six hours - is associated with negative health outcomes such as all-cause mortality, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and impaired vigilance and cognition."

During this small study, the researchers studied gene activity in 26 sleep deprived volunteers.  They discovered that insufficient sleep had an impact on more than 700 genes.  Some of those genes became sluggish in their activity while others became overactive.  The genes affected included those associated with the "body clock" cycle, metabolism, and immune and stress responses.

During the study, the volunteers were subjected to a period of sleep restriction - 1 week of less than six hours sleep per night.  At the end of this restriction period, they had to stay awake for around forty hours while RNA samples were collected every 3 hours.

RNA is the messenger chemical that delivers coded instructions from genes to cells.  RNA can be used as a tool to measure gene activity.

The volunteers were then allowed to sleep for up to ten hours per night for a week and again, at the end of the week, RNA samples were taken every 3 hours during a long period of wakefulness.  The results from the two different weeks of RNA samples were then compared.

The scientists noted that "Sleep obtained in the sleep-restriction condition was not sufficient to maintain alertness or performance."

Doesn't seem like much of a result after all the volunteers went through!

However, 1 in 3 Britons is managing on 5-6 hours sleep per night.  Almost half of Britons say stress or worry keeps them awake at night, according to a report published 1st March 2013 by The Sleep Council.

More than 5000 people were surveyed about their sleeping habits in The Great British Bedtime Report. The findings were that the average Briton achieves about 6 hours 35 minutes sleep per night.  Research suggests that for good health, seven and a half hours per night is necessary.

Scientists from Surrey University have stated that just seven days of poor sleep can disrupt hundreds of genes linked to stress, immunity and inflammation.

Dr. Chris Idzikowski, Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, said that worsening sleep habits were a "significant" cause for concern.

"Disrupted sleep not only impacts on quality of life but there's an increased risk of higher blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.  Many studies in recent years have concluded there is a higher death rate linked with less than five and a half hours sleep a night and more than nine and a half.

"It's still not clear why, but deterioration in people's thinking ability alone can occur after just one night of poor sleep."

He said that growing rates of obesity may be partly to blame with associated problems stopping those affected from sleeping properly and quite often their partners too.

According to a 2004 study, people who sleep less than six hours a night were almost 30% more likely to become obese than those who slept 7-9 hours.

There seems to be a link between sleep and the peptides that regulate appetite.  Ghrelin stimulates hunger and leptin signals satiety to the brain, which then suppresses appetite.  Less sleep is associated with decreases in leptin and increases in Ghrelin.  This means that lack of sleep appears to stimulate hunger and also a craving for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods.

The current economic crisis doesn't help.  Our stress levels have shot up, with people who have lost their jobs not sleeping and others lie awake at night worrying about losing their jobs.  47% of those surveyed in The Sleep Council's report said that stress or worry was keeping them awake at night.  This figure was much higher for women at 54% and singles at 57%.  Men came in at 40%.

The study found that 22% of Britons weren't getting a good night's sleep most nights and that men seem to sleep better than women with 30% sleeping well compared with 22% of women.

Lack of sleep can also affect our interpretation of events, which leads to impaired judgement as we may not assess situations accurately and act on them wisely.

Sleep deprived people seem to be especially prone to poor judgement when it comes to evaluating what lack of sleep is doing to them.  Sleep specialists say that if you think you're doing ok on less sleep you're probably wrong.  Studies show that over time, people who are getting 6 hours of sleep as opposed to 7-8 hours, begin to feel that they've adapted to that lack of sleep, but tests on mental alertness and performance show that they are going downhill, this shows that there is a point in sleep deprivation when we lose touch with how impaired we really are.  So if your job depends on you being able to judge your level of functioning - this can be a real problem.

It has also been found that the type of light emitted from televisions, smartphones and tablets stop the brain from understanding it's time to go to sleep.  So it is advisable to keep these things out of the bedroom.   If you find yourself in bed and unable to sleep then experts advise you to get out of bed and sit in a chair and read a book or carry out some quiet activity and when you begin to feel sleepy go back to bed and use a relaxation technique to get to sleep.

Remember, sleep is very important on all levels.  How well are you sleeping?


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com