TIME Magazine - TIME the Science of Sleep

The Science of Sleep

How Rest Works Wonders What Kids Need Tips to Sleep Like a Pro

INTRODUCTION

The Power of Sleep

We know sleep restores and renews, but only if you get enough of it

BY ALICE PARK

When our heads hit the pillow every night, we tend to think were surrendering. Not just to exhaustion, though there is that. Were also surrendering our mind, taking leave of our focus on sensory cues, like noise and smell and blinking lights. Its as if were powering ourselves down as we do the electronics at our bedsidegoing idle for a while, only to spring back into action when the alarm blasts hours later.

Thats what we think is happening. But as scientists are now revealing, that couldnt be further from the truth. In fact, when the lights go out, our brains start workingbut in an altogether different way from when were awake.

Scientists are just beginning to piece together the larger picture. Getting more and better-quality sleep each night can improve concentration, sharpen planning and memory skills and maintain the fat-burning systems that regulate our weight. If every one of us slept as much as were supposed to, wed all be lighter, less prone to developing Type 2 diabetes and most likely better equipped to battle depression and anxiety. We might even lower our risk of Alzheimers disease, osteoporosis and cancer.

The trouble is, sleep works only if we get enough of it. Which is why, after long treating rest as a good-if-you-can-get-it obligation, scientists are making the case that it matters much more than we think. Theyre not alone in sounding the alarm. With up to 70 million of us not getting a good nights sleep on a regular basis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers insufficient sleep a public-health problem.

It would seem to be a problem with a simple solution. And yet, despite how great we know we feel after a nights restand putting aside what we now know about sleeps importancewe stubbornly refuse to swallow our medicine, pushing off bedtime and thinking that feeling a little drowsy during the day is an annoying but harmless consequence. Its not.

We all want to push the system, to get the most out of our lives, and sleep gets in the way, says Sigrid Veasey, a leading sleep researcher and a professor of medicine at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. But we need to know how far we can really push that system and get away with it. Whats needed is a rebranding of sleep that strips away any hint of its being on the sidelines of our health.

As it is, sleep is so undervalued that getting by on fewer hours has become a badge of honor. Plus, we live in a culture that caters to the late-nighter, from 24-hour grocery stores to online shopping sites that never close. Its no surprise, then, that one third of American adults dont get the recommended seven to nine hours of shut-eye every night.

Making things trickier is the fact that we are unaware of the toll sleep deprivation takes on us. Studies consistently show that people who sleep less than eight hours a night dont perform as well on concentration and memory tests but report feeling no deficits in their thinking skills. That just perpetuates the tendency to dismiss sleep and its critical role in everything from our mental faculties to our metabolic health.

The ideal is to reset the bodys natural sleep-wake cycle, a matter of training our bodies to sleep similar amounts every night and wake up at roughly the same time each day. To accomplish that is to consider sleep a mustnot a luxury.

We now know that there is a lasting price to pay for sleep loss, says Veasey. We used to think that if you dont sleep enough, you can sleep more and youll be fine tomorrow. We now know if you push the system enough, thats simply not true.

This is why researchers hope their new discoveries will change once and for all the way we think aboutand prioritizeour slumbers. The good news, as you will see in the chapters of this book, is that as we learn more about the intimate connections between our minds and bodies and our need for sleep, the better we will be able to address one of modern societys most pressing health issues.

Editor Edward Felsenthal

Creative Director D.W. Pine

The Science of Sleep

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