Share:
Sleep Studies After a few days of sleep deficit, people are like drunk
Using an app, researchers have studied sleep patterns in different nations worldwide. Germans therefore sleep below average for a long time. The longest sleep is granted to neighbors of us. Those who do not rest enough at night endanger their health.
Lack of sleep endangers the health
An old truism says that you become ill through lack of sleep, fat and stupid. In fact, some scientific research has already established a connection between a lack of sleep and illness. For example, a study by scientists at the University of California at San Francisco showed that those who sleep less often catch cold more often. And Finnish physicians at the University of Helsinki have recently reported in a press release that after just one week of low sleep, the risk of heart disease increases. The night's sleep should not be too short. How long people sleep in different countries of the world was part of a new study reported by the dpa news agency. The Germans therefore sleep less than the average.
Using an app, researchers have studied the sleep patterns of people in 20 nations. Among other things, they found that sleep duration is largely determined by evening activities. (Image: elnariz / fotolia.com) Dutch people sleep the longest
As a large study, which determined global sleep patterns for the first time using an app among thousands of subjects, shows, people in Japan and Singapore sleep the least at night - on average, only seven hours and 24 minutes. The Dutch enjoy the longest night's sleep among the inhabitants of various industrial nations with eight hours and twelve minutes. And the Germans are around seven hours and 45 minutes of sleep per night below the average of the 20 countries studied. As the team around US researcher Olivia Walch of the University of Michigan writes in the journal Sciences Advances, every half hour of sleep means a marked difference in brain performance and long-term health, even if the range does not seem so wide.
Biological clock has a strong effect on the recovery time
In addition, the evaluation of the data of around 5,500 participants showed that the time of falling asleep is determined by the environment and social norms and - in some cases contrary to one's own need for sleep - is postponed. "Throughout the data, it seems that society regulates sleep time, and the individual's internal clock spikes wake-up time, and that a subsequent fall asleep results in a loss of sleep," explained co-author and mathematician Daniel Forger. Although there are obligations such as job, children and school in the morning, these are not the only factors in getting up. Not only the alarm clock, but also the biological clock of the subjects and test persons had a strong effect on their waking time. In addition, the genetic predisposition would be added, for example, in people with very little need for sleep, as well as the chronotype of each individual - whether early bird or night owl, as Forger explained. "These inherent factors must also be taken into account", because they played an important role in addition to the social factors for the time of falling asleep.
"A few days sleep deficit and you're like drunk"
The researchers also found that middle-aged men had the least sleep, often less than the recommended seven to eight hours per night. Women sleep, especially between the ages of 30 and 60, on average about half an hour longer than men. That's a good thing, because according to experts, women are more dependent on sleep than men. Furthermore, it was found that people who spend the day outdoors are usually going to bed sooner and thus get more sleep. Principal author Walch emphasized, according to dpa, that the study did not determine how much sleep the individual needs, but only describes the average. By too short sleep, the performance can be severely limited: "It only takes a few days sleep deficit and you are as drunk." However, these overtired people hardly even noticed and assessed their performance regularly too high.
Evening activities determine the duration of sleep significantly
The scientists won the data via the free app "Entrain" developed by them. This was originally intended to help people deal with jet lag. In addition to their whereabouts in the app, the participants regularly indicate their sleep times and report how long they have spent indoors or outdoors. Alfred Wiater, chairman of the German Society for Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine (DGSM), called the survey method via apps trend-setting for future studies of this kind. "In terms of content, it has become increasingly important to consider age- and gender-specific aspects of sleep behavior ", Says the expert. It is said that the core message of the study - that evening activities determine sleep duration - should also be considered with regard to the evening media consumption of children and adolescents. Not least because research has shown that smartphones and Co robbed of sleep at night. (Ad)