Are we getting enough sleep?

It's ironic isn't it? My 5 mo. old has been sleeping through the night for almost for 2 months now and and I still wake up more than she does to check on her! I don't think I've slept really well and solid for about 3 years with two pregnancies and two kids. So what better thing to do late at night than blog! It got me thinking about sleep and google has a lot to offer on the topic.

Now granted, with new babies, parents are bound to get a lot of interrupted sleep that gradually subsides as your kids sleep through the night but it is interesting to note that the trend in industrialized nations over the last hundred years suggests that people are increasingly sleep deprived. In 1910, the average person slept 9.0 hours per night, by 1975, the total had fallen to 7.5 hours. The 2002 Sleep in America poll conducted by NSF, indicates that the average American adult now only sleeps 6.9 hours a night leading to fatigue, exhaustion and other symptoms. Shift workers suffer more than other people: many only average 5 hours a night. A large proportion of the problem according to most sociologists, is due to high paced lifestyles causing the lack of time to get the sleep we need. The other reason people are so sleep deprived (other than having new babies) is due to sleep disorders, which may or may not be diagosed so readily as doctors are frequently NOT taught sleep during medical training.

Sleep deprivation is a common condition that afflicts 47 million American adults; that's almost a quarter of the adult population in the US! The brain's frontal cortex relies on sleep to function effectively. Insufficient rest adversely affects the frontal cortex's ability to control speech, access memory, and solve problems. Sleep affects your energy levels, mental abilities and emotional mood. I can tell you from experience, that having babies and getting no sleep seriously affects the memory - now I have to write everything down.

Different people require different amounts of rest. While the majority of adults should spend between eight to nine hours asleep, a small number of people function perfectly well on only three to four hours of rest. The time a person spends asleep also changes with age:

Zero to 24 months: Thirteen to seventeen hours.
Two year olds: Nine to thirteen hours.
Ten year olds: Ten to eleven  hours.
Sixteen to 65 years: Six to nine hours.
Over 65 years: Six to eight hours.

Here's an interesting

sleep test

to see if you've got any actual sleep disorders aside from the newborn tugging at you for some feeding.
...Sweet dreams...