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Why Sleep? Intro to America's Epidemic
27 Plays1 year ago
Why are we talking about sleep? Most people are aware of the negative impacts of sleep deprivation, but what are we doing about it? As the data shows we keep getting worse at sleeping, how can we shift our mindset that doesn't involve more medication?
This is part 1 of an intro series on sleep, memory, and dreams.
Connect with us at SuenoLabs.com. We're currently looking for contributors and podcast guests!
Disclaimer: This show is for informational purposes only. Sueño Labs does not provide medical advice.
Featured in this episode are clips from PBS NewsHour, ABC News, and The Joe Rogan Experience.
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Transcript
The Sleep Epidemic
00:00:00
Speaker
The CDC calls this issue a public health epidemic. It's linked to conditions including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, anxiety, and depression. This thing that is creating one of the biggest public health crises in America is not getting enough sleep.
00:00:26
Speaker
Tonight, we're talking about why sleep. Why is this something that we're so bad at? What are some of the impacts that it has and why is it worth exploring this further? I'm Jimmy Leonard. This is Swenio Labs.
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, welcome to Swenio Labs. Thanks for joining. This is the first of a three-part mini series on sleep, memory, and dreams. Why these three topics? And tonight we start with sleep.
Struggles with Sleep
00:01:03
Speaker
Globally, we spend tens of billions of dollars every year on sleep aids.
00:01:10
Speaker
that doesn't include the additional billions of dollars people spend on new mattresses every year. We invest so much into understanding how we can sleep better, how we can sleep more deeply, how we can overcome sleep conditions like insomnia. But when you stop and think about it, it's kind of weird that we're so bad at this, right? We sleep literally every day of our lives.
00:01:38
Speaker
And yet for most people, good sleep is elusive. Think about how many times in your life you've said, I'm having trouble falling asleep or I can't fall asleep. That's weird, right? Who would you say? I can't eat today. Like my mouth.
00:01:56
Speaker
can't chew this food, my stomach can't digest it, or I can't breathe today, it's like my lungs forgot how to take in air. And yet for some reason, this basic survival mechanism of calming down and falling asleep is something that is so hard for us to do. And it hasn't always been this way.
Consequences of Sleep Deprivation
00:02:26
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I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but sleep is the single biggest contributor to overall health and brain function. More than diet, more than exercise, more than lifestyle.
00:02:42
Speaker
Think about it, after just a few nights, maybe even just one night of not sleeping well, we make more mistakes. We are more irritable, more quick to anger. We kind of stumble through the workday. We feel more anxious. We feel more miserable. Police officers will often tell you that sleep-deprived driving is indistinguishable from drunk driving.
00:03:07
Speaker
We know this. We know the impact that it has on our brains. But what are we doing about that? Even though we've identified countless medical conditions that are exacerbated by poor sleep, millions of Americans are living chronically fatigued. And it's not just working adults.
00:03:32
Speaker
Doctors recommend that teenagers get eight to 10 hours of sleep every night, but many are sleeping far less than
Impact on Youth
00:03:38
Speaker
that. And nearly one in four also suffers from insomnia. According to the CDC, about one in three US adults doesn't get enough sleep. An estimated 50 to 70 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders.
00:03:57
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Children who don't get enough sleep are often struggling to pay attention in school. They are often misbehaving more. They're more likely to be anxious or depressed. Of course, adults that don't get enough sleep are usually feeling more frustrated and crankier at work as well, maybe even putting strain on their relationships with their friends, their spouses, their children.
00:04:22
Speaker
Research continually shows that not getting enough sleep has incredibly detrimental effects on our mental health, our physical health, even our safety.
Historical Sleep Trends
00:04:35
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Our nation running on empty. Up to 70 million Americans are not getting enough sleep every night. Just one night of bad sleep can lead to problems concentrating and more seriously accidents like car crashes.
00:04:48
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In 2017, a Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology named Matthew Walker published a book called Why We Sweep.
00:04:58
Speaker
And I remember when this came out, it felt like everybody was talking about it. It's the new trending lifestyle book. He's on a number of different morning shows. He's on Joe Rogan. And he just tells me, I mean, in some ways, how necessary sleep must be, if that's the lengths that the brain will go to to get that which it's been missing.
00:05:18
Speaker
And just shows you why it took Mother Nature 3.6 million years to put this thing called an eight-hour sleep necessity in place. And we've come along, and within the space of 100 years, we've lopped off almost 20% of that, if you look at the data.
00:05:33
Speaker
And all of a sudden we're having these conversations around sleep itself, not just needing a different pillow or a different mattress, or I just need to go to bed 20 minutes earlier, but, but really just why is sleep itself important? And then of course the pandemic happens.
00:05:52
Speaker
And of course, this is part of a much larger trend. According to NPR, American sleep hours have been declining steadily since the 1980s. But when we hit 2019, 2020, it really felt like we went over a cliff.
00:06:10
Speaker
And there's reasons for that, right? We had so many people going to work from home where now the only time you can get work done is by waking up early before the kids get up or by staying up late in the evenings after the kids go to bed. And of course there's just more stress and anxiety about everything that's happening and then people are getting sick and that's going to have an impact on your overall health.
00:06:34
Speaker
We've re-normed what we think is an appropriate amount of sleep.
00:06:42
Speaker
The CDC recommends seven to eight hours of sleep per night for adults, but this bar keeps getting lower. Now you hear people talking about, Oh, as long as you get six to seven hours of sleep, or, you know, I can still be productive on six hours of sleep. And it's like eight is not even thought of as a feasible possibility anymore.
The Need for Sleep Education
00:07:11
Speaker
The more data that comes out around this, the more we're starting to see that lack of sleep can lead to long-term problems with brain development in kids and even raising risk for developing dementia or Alzheimer's as an older adult, simply because we aren't getting enough sleep.
00:07:32
Speaker
For me, where I think we need to take the biggest step back is realizing that as much as we might be aware of or talk about the negative effects of sleep, we really don't spend a lot of time in America or in Western society as a whole learning how to sleep.
00:07:55
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I mean, it sounds silly, but think back. When you were in school, did you have lessons or homework assignments that instructed you on how to go to sleep?
00:08:08
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Probably not, right? It's almost laughable. Teachers are saying, don't sleep in class. Like, hey, get your head off the desk, don't sleep. But we do teach kids about nutrition and eating the right foods. We do teach kids about physical education and exercise. We do teach kids about sex ed and budgeting and life skills and all of these other things, but it's so rare. It's almost unheard of to have a curriculum dedicated to sleeping better.
00:08:37
Speaker
Even some of the conversations that happen in health communities right now, we've got all of these different systems for counting macros and dieting and exercise plans and how to go from couch to 5K, but it's pretty rare to find a plan that actually helps you sleep better. There's all of these different sleep trackers on the market where you can see how horribly you're sleeping and you can have some awareness of it of, okay, maybe I should
00:09:05
Speaker
go to bed a little bit sooner, or maybe I should try to stay in bed a little bit longer. But it's pretty rare to find a program that is really explaining to you, that's really coaching you on how you could sleep more restfully, more regularly, and even be more productive in terms of how that deep sleep is benefiting your brain health.
Swenio Labs' Mission
00:09:29
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So it's when your labs, we are really striving to bring some attention to shed some light on what are some of these best practices for improving sleep. Not just that you need to sleep more, but how you sleep more.
00:09:45
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How can we actually approach our lives in a way that is sustainable, recognizing that we can't completely get rid of work. We can't completely get rid of electronics. We can't completely get rid of the need to travel and be in these different places. But knowing that all of those constraints are there, how can we minimize the distractions and really train our bodies to calm down and to get deep, restful sleep every night? Easier said than done, right?
00:10:14
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but it is a worthy pursuit, considering how closely sleep is connected to our long-term brain health and memory, and even our understanding of ourselves through dreams, which is something we're gonna talk about in the coming episodes. So if you'd like to learn more or join some of these conversations, you can visit us at suenoelabs.com. That's S-U-E-N-O-L-A-B-S.com.
00:10:40
Speaker
We are currently looking for contributors for our online web content and also guests for our podcast. So you don't have to be a medical expert, but if you have some interest in this topic of sleep or a story to share, please reach out. I'd love to hear your story and talk about how we could collaborate to work together to share a message of promoting healthy, deep sleep in a culture that too often ignores it.
00:11:09
Speaker
Thank you for listening, and I'll join you again soon on Swen Your Labs.