Getting eight hours of sleep each night is a luxury for all of us. By having enough sleep to avoid the car accident in Malaysia
A total of 18 people died daily in road accidents nationwide 2015 in Malaysia. It is an alarm to note the number of road accidents last year has also increased.
In 2014, there were 476,196 road accidents, while in 2015, 489,606 accidents were reported – a spike by 2.74 per cent. The total number of accidents included 6,706 fatalities in 2015, as compared to 6,674 fatalities in 2014.
Malaysians are taking lightly the importance of sleep. Driving from 2am to 4am, during that time, our body is preparing to sleep. Driving is going against it. The cognition and response are slower and wakefulness will not last as long as usual. Driving in the wee hours in the morning can lead to road accident especially the long distance express buses. Banned this practice.
30% of the Malaysian bus drivers were found to have sleep disorders A test carried amongst 300 Malaysian bus drivers by the Road Safety Department and the Sleep Disorder Society Malaysia.
Tests have shown that people who sleep six hours instead of seven or eight have poorer performance in mental alertness.
In view of the importance of sleep to health, the respective authorities should
–Ban wee-hour trips by express buses
— The Ministry of Health should have creates the campaign the awareness on sleep.
How much sleep is ‘enough’?
What are the effects of insufficient sleep? How are our bodies affected?
The following article sheds some light on the unpleasant, and sometimes dangerous, repercussions of not getting enough sleep each night.
1. Sleepiness Causes Accidents
Sleep is a biological requirement that cannot be overcome with willpower, determination or training. A neuroscientist Prof Russell Foster, from the University of Oxford, said that a lack of sleep damages long-term health. It results in impaired brain skills similar to those observed under the influence of alcohol.
An adult with less five hours sleep has adverse effects. The effects are similar who drinks alcohol. It includes general impairment of vision and coordination.
The distracted driver on his morning commute, along with accidental microsleeps that entail dropping off when at the wheel. Besides, causing road accidents, it may also damage the quality of crucial decisions made at work.
2. Sleep Loss Impairs Your Normal Thought Process
Sleep plays a critical role in the thinking and learning processes. Lack of sleep affects these cognitive abilities in several ways.
Firstly, it impairs attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving. This side effect reduced your learning and absorbing information efficiently.
Secondly, throughout the night, various sleep cycles play a key role in ‘consolidating’ memories. Insufficient sleep, the information you have gathered throughout the day is not effectively stored in your short-term and long-term memory banks. Resulting in memory gaps and a decline in cognitive ability and recollection.
3. Your Mood Could Swing All over the Place.
Besides,the impairing the ability to learn and process information. The decreased sleep also leads to “depression and anxiety in the long term,” advises Dianne Augelli, M.D., a sleep expert at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.
The short-term effects of sleep deprivation, offer a false impression of an improvement in mood. Augelli counsels that the short-term elevation in mood “may be because certain neurotransmitters and hormones are released to keep you awake”.
She cautions that the borderline-euphoric feelings will not last and that they are to be regarded as early warning markers of damage caused by insufficient sleep.
4. Your Blood Pressure Goes Up
In a landmark study of human sleep deprivation, University of Chicago researchers followed a group of student volunteers who slept only four hours nightly for six consecutive days.
The volunteers developed higher blood pressure and higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. To make the matter worst , volunteers also produced only half the usual number of antibodies to a flu vaccine. Some sleep-deprived students also showed signs of insulin resistance — a condition widely regarded as a precursor of type 2 diabetes and metabolic slowdown.
The changes were reversed when the student volunteers made up the hours of sleep they had lost. The Chicago study helps to explain why chronic sleep debt raises the risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
5. Your Skin Gets Stressed out, Too.
The aforementioned stress hormone, cortisol, is also responsible for moderating skin health and appearance.
Cortisol levels naturally decrease during sleep, says Joshua Zeichner, the director of a cosmetic and clinical research in Dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Low levels of cortisol allow skin to regenerate and protect itself. Lack of sleep, the cortisol levels stay high and skin is not allowed to perform its natural reparative tasks.
Higher cortisol levels, also, increases the skin’s oil production capabilities, leaving you with a greasy appearance. Your face prone to a pimple break-out.
The above 5 are the side-effects of not getting enough sleep each night. Now that you’re sufficiently motivated to get the amount of sleep your body requires, increase your ‘ROI’ by finding out which positions would work best for you!
Your Sleep Needs Change Over the Years
How much sleep you need to stay healthy, alert, and active? It depends on your age and varies from person to person. Most adults need at least seven or more hours of sleep each night.
The National Sleep Foundation and a panel of 18 experts combed through more than 300 studies to identify the ideal amount of time a person needs to sleep according to their age:
- Newborns (0 to 3 months): 14 to 17 hours of sleep
- Infants (4 to 11 months): 12 to 15 hours of sleep
- Toddlers (1 to 2 years): 11 to 14 hours of sleep
- Preschoolers (3 to 5 years): 10 to 13 hours of sleep
- School-aged children (6 to 13 years): 9 to 11 hours of sleep
- Teenagers (14 to 17 years): 8 to 10 hours of sleep
- Young adults (18 to 25 years): 7 to 9 hours of sleep
- Adults (26 to 64 years): 7 to 9 hours of sleep
- Older adults (65 years or older): 7 to 8 hours of sleep
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