Canada (Commonwealth Union) – Sleep has always been known to play an essential role in our wellbeing. In a fast-moving world and with high inflation many people have taken up extra work to pay off debts, often sacrificing sleep.
Adults between 18 to 64 years old who sleeps 7-9 hours a day, and adults over 65 years who sleep 7-8 hours a day are following Canadian recommendations on sleep duration that can raise life expectancy. This is according to a Canadian study led by Professor Julie Carrier, who conducted the study at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sleep Medicine and professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Montreal, with fellow researchers at UdeM, the University of Ottawa, Laval University and Queen’s University.
The findings saw that healthy sleep duration raised life expectancy by 1.2 years when contrasted with sleeping too little and by 2.6 years compared with excessive sleeping.
Professor Carrier stated that there is clear evidence that less sleep is linked to elevated health risks.
Several studies have indicated that the short-term impacts of low sleep are poor glucose regulation, lower immune system efficiency, cardiovascular problems, sleepiness, and cognitive and memory issues. “In the long term, we’re looking at higher likelihood of a list of physical, emotional and cognitive disorders,” Prof. Carrier said. “For example, if we know the number of hours a person sleeps, we can predict the development of neurodegenerative diseases.”
To raise awareness on this issue, she launched the Canadian public health campaign ‘Sleep on It’ in 2019. The goal is to inform the general public on the advantages of sleep, give solutions for people having sleep disorders, and make sleep quality a key focus for public health. “We need to make people who deliberately reduce their hours of sleep aware of the dangers and help people with sleep disorders sleep better,” said Professor Carrier and indicated that it’s a public health issue.
