The Lesser You Sleep The Shorter You Live, States Science

Think you¡¯re doing yourself a world of good by burning the midnight oil working hard at your future endeavours? Think again.

Missing out on your is sleep is shortening your life, state Matthew Walker, the director of sleep science at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Walker has spent the last four and a half years writing his book Why We Sleep, that takes a look at the link between the lack of sleep and Alzheimer¡¯s disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and poor mental health.

¡°No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation,¡± he says in an interview with the Guardian. ¡°It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families,¡± states Walker.

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Lack of sleep costs the UK economy over 30 billion pounds in lost revenue, which amounts to 2 percent of their GDP! Believes Walker.

He states that in 1942 (75 years ago) less than 8 percent of our population was surviving on less than six hours of sleep at night. In 2017, the equation has come down to one in two people.

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What has caused such a dramatic degradation of sleep over the years one might ask?

¡°First, we electrified the night. Light is a profound degrader of our sleep,¡± Walker says. ¡° Second, there is the issue of work: not only the porous borders between when you start and finish but longer commuter times, too. No one wants to give up time with their family or entertainment, so they give up sleep instead.

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The developed world has also stigmatised sleep with laziness, weakness and shame, adds Walker. ¡°We want to seem busy, and one way we express that is by proclaiming how little sleep we¡¯re getting. It¡¯s a badge of honour,¡± says Walker.

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The World Health Organisation has deemed any form of night-shift work as a possible carcinogen, states Walker while emphasising on the need to fix a regular 8 hours of sleep schedule every night.

¡°Once you know that after just one night of only four or five hours¡¯ sleep, your natural killer cells¡ªthe ones that attack the cancer cells that appear in your body every day¡ªdrop by 70%, or that a lack of sleep is linked to cancer of the bowel, prostate and breast, how could you do anything else?

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¡°If there is one thing I tell people, it¡¯s to go to bed and to wake up at the same time every day, no matter what,¡± states Walker among other changes that we need to adopt.

To do so successfully Walker suggests that people to look at sleep as work, like going to the gym (except that it is more enjoyable and free!). If we are using an alarm to wake up, why aren't using one to remind us that it is time to wind down an head to bed? Questions Walker.

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The future seems optimistic, however, especially when it comes to sleep and technology is going to be our sleep saviour, states Walker.

¡°We will know everything about our bodies from one day to the next in high fidelity. That will be a seismic shift, and we will then start to develop methods by which we can amplify different components of human sleep, and do that from the bedside. Sleep will come to be seen as a preventive medicine.¡±