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Tips for living well: taking time out
continued from page 2
How much shuteye is enough?
Scientists have estimated that a century ago, people living in industrialized cities got around nine hours of sleep a night. Nowadays, with our longer working hours and night-time light pollution, the average for city-dwellers is somewhere in the region of less than seven hours. That means you'll spend about 25 years of your life asleep!
So is sleep doing its job for you - and what exactly is the point of it in the first place?
The early sleep experts wondered whether the behaviour had originally evolved to keep our ancient ancestors out of trouble in the darkness of night on the African savannah. But as people's bedrooms have proved to be relatively safe from roving jungle predators for some time now, that doesn't exactly explain it. Instead, the more likely explanation is that sleep's refreshing and regenerative effects allow various brain, hormonal and growth processes to take place inside you. Essentially, sleep gives your brain and body uninterrupted time to get its biological duster and rubber gloves out and get down to its own special version of internal housekeeping.
Getting into sleep debt
If you think of sleep as time that could be spent more usefully doing something else, what's coming might - ironically enough - be a bit of a wake-up call. Here's what really happens to your body as it gets deprived of sufficient resting time. At first, despite feeling tired after one or several nights of compromised sleeping time, you'll probably be able to carry out most simple tasks relatively well in short bursts. But the real problems begin when major concentration is required. Your judgement will be affected, your social and communication skills will suffer and you'll be far more likely to make bad decisions all round. You might get grumpy and irritable or take unadvisable risks in your daily life, even down to little things like crossing the road against the traffic lights or putting your foot down in the car to get somewhere on time.
How much shuteye is enough?
Scientists have estimated that a century ago, people living in industrialized cities got around nine hours of sleep a night. Nowadays, with our longer working hours and night-time light pollution, the average for city-dwellers is somewhere in the region of less than seven hours. That means you'll spend about 25 years of your life asleep!
So is sleep doing its job for you - and what exactly is the point of it in the first place?
The early sleep experts wondered whether the behaviour had originally evolved to keep our ancient ancestors out of trouble in the darkness of night on the African savannah. But as people's bedrooms have proved to be relatively safe from roving jungle predators for some time now, that doesn't exactly explain it. Instead, the more likely explanation is that sleep's refreshing and regenerative effects allow various brain, hormonal and growth processes to take place inside you. Essentially, sleep gives your brain and body uninterrupted time to get its biological duster and rubber gloves out and get down to its own special version of internal housekeeping.
Getting into sleep debt
If you think of sleep as time that could be spent more usefully doing something else, what's coming might - ironically enough - be a bit of a wake-up call. Here's what really happens to your body as it gets deprived of sufficient resting time. At first, despite feeling tired after one or several nights of compromised sleeping time, you'll probably be able to carry out most simple tasks relatively well in short bursts. But the real problems begin when major concentration is required. Your judgement will be affected, your social and communication skills will suffer and you'll be far more likely to make bad decisions all round. You might get grumpy and irritable or take unadvisable risks in your daily life, even down to little things like crossing the road against the traffic lights or putting your foot down in the car to get somewhere on time.
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