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You're Getting Very Sleepy
|More sleep would make most Americans happier, healthier and safer |
|Findings |
|Many people are surprised to learn that researchers have discovered a single treatment that improves memory, increases people's |
|ability to concentrate, strengthens the immune system, and decreases people's risk of being killed in accidents. Sound to be good to |
|be true? It gets even better. The treatment is completely free, even for people who have no health insurance. It also has no side |
|effects. Finally, most people consider the treatment highly enjoyable. Would you try it? |
|You probably should. For most people, this treatment would consist of getting an extra 60-90 minutes of sleep each night. Both |
|psychologists and psychiatrists have been arguing for years that one of the most significant and overlooked public health problems in|
|the U.S. is that many American adults are chronically sleep deprived. That is, very few Americans regularly obtain the 8 or more |
|hours of sleep that almost all adults need each night. The consequences of this chronic sleep deprivation can truly be disastrous. |
|Laboratory experiments on the effects of sleep deprivation have shown that failing to get enough sleep dramatically impairs memory |
|and concentration while increasing levels of stress hormones and disrupting the body's normal metabolism. Research outside the |
|laboratory further suggests that long term sleep deprivation leads to greater susceptibility to motor vehicle accidents and may even |
|lead to premature aging. |
|This is important because research shows that many...