Sleep Deprivation Triples Mental Illness Risk
A new study of 20,00 young adults shows that two hours of sleep shortage a night triples the risk of developing a serious mental illness.
Sleep Deprivation Triples Mental Illness Risk
Compared to a decade ago, young adults are delaying sleep to spend several hours online checking Facebook, surfing the web and playing computer games
All those online activities end up costing them sleep and lots of it.
Medical researchers from George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia, analysed the sleeping habits of almost 20,000 people aged between 17 and 24.
They found over half of those who got fewer than six hours sleep had high levels of psychological distress, compared with one quarter of those who slept the necessary eight to nine hours a night to properly process short term memory and rest their brains.
Professor Nick Glozier, who led the study, said: “Over the past few decades young adults have been sleeping fewer and fewer hours, whereas the rest of us have generally been sleeping more hours.
“There’s a whole load of gadgets that kids and young adults now have in their bedrooms that they never used to have.
“Yet of course they have to get up and go to school or college or go to university at exactly the same time. So there’s a group of them who are becoming more and more sleep-deprived.”
A lack of sleep could have potentially serious effects, he said.
“What we are seeing is young adults who start off with anxiety and body clock problems, moving on to problems like bipolar or major depression.
“In young adults already experiencing distress, the fewer hours they sleep the worse the outcome.”
Psychological distress in the study participants was assessed using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), that evaluates a person’s mental health problems.
The study results of young adult’s voluntary sleep deprivation appear in the September, 2010 issue of the medical journal “Sleep”.
And that’s the latest from Action News on Sleep Deprivation Triples Mental Illness Risk.
Tags: health, lack of sleep, research, sleep, sleep deprivation, Sleep Deprivation Triples Mental Illness Risk, teens, young adults
