One third of Indian adults experience sleep debt. Not sleeping enough can increase your risk of hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
We all live in a busy world where the most important resource at our disposal is time itself. There never seems enough time to accomplish everything that needs to be done. There is the 8-hour work day, the need for some family time, chore time (which always seems to take up too much time!), exercise time and then the challenge of carving out some me-time. For some, there is the additional 60 minute to-and-fro commute to work. With so many demands, it would seem obvious that something has got to give. Sadly, the most common thing to give in the working population is the time spent sleeping. As a result people are likely to accumulate what has now been commonly referred to as “sleep debt”.
Sleep debt can be determined through a simple calculation. The difference between the sleep you require (say 7 hours) and the sleep that you get (e.g. 5 hours) is what constitutes your sleep debt for the night. In this case, a 2-hour sleep debt has accrued. Unfortunately, one third of Indian adults are thought to be experiencing sleep debt, too large a number given the significant side effects of not sleeping enough.
So how much should we be sleeping?
As per the guidelines developed by the American Association of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society, adults should be sleeping for around 7 hours per night, with children requiring more hours of sleep for the brain to rest and recover. Specifically, children aged 6-12 years of age are recommended to sleep for 9-12 hours, with recommended levels for teenagers dropping slightly to 8 10 hours per night.
A quick reflection on our own habits and those of our loved ones is likely to reveal that perhaps everyone you know is incurring a sleep debt. They all seem to be functioning perfectly well though. So, is sleep debt actually that bad or it just one additional benign lifestyle change to attribute to today’s fast paced, competitive world we live in?
Is sleep debt that bad?
Our bodies are remarkable machines. Brief periods of sleep debt while definitely unpleasant in that one feels fatigued and tired, is unlikely to have a long-lasting effect on one’s health. Ongoing sleep debt however is associated with a string of ill effects. Unfortunately, being the adaptive machines that we are, our bodies quickly adjust to reduced hours of sleeping, and we come to accept that as our normal functioning. Unknown to us though, we are likely accepting ‘sub-normal’ activity as normal.
Lack of sleep increases the risk of hypertension and diabetes and is also associated with greater calorific intake and increased belly fat, all risk factors of cardiovascular disease. Sleep debt has negative effects on one’s metabolism and can also cause weight gain and increase insulin sensitivity (Depner et al., 2019). From a cognitive perspective, it is now well established that sleep is important for both consolidating memories as well as learning new information (Yoo et al., 2007). The lack of sleep or sleep debt that one typically experiences has also been associated with social withdrawal and loneliness (Simon & Walker, 2018).
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