Sleep duration

Good sleep means less sick leave at work

If you sleep for seven to eight hours, you are less likely to apply for sick leave at work, finds a fascinating study.

The risk of extended absence from work due to sickness rose sharply among those who reported sleeping less than six hours or more than nine hours per night.

Good sleep means less sick leave at work

“Insufficient sleep — due to inadequate or mistimed sleep — contributes to the risk for several of today’s public health epidemics. Getting at least seven hours of night sleep is a key to overall health, which translates to less sick time away from work,” said Timothy Morgenthaler, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The optimal sleeping time per night is 7 hours, 38 minutes for women and 7 hours, 46 minutes for men.

The study was based on a survey of 3,760 men and women in the age group of 30-64 in Finland.

According to Tea Lallukka from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, insomnia symptoms should be detected early to help prevent absence due to sickness and deterioration of health, well being and functioning.

Successful prevention of insomnia not only promotes health and work ability among employees, but it can also lead to notable savings in reduced sickness absence costs, Lallallukka concluded.

The study appeared in the journal Sleep.

Source: Economic Times

How sleep duration can up depression risk

A genetic study of adult twins and a community-based study of adolescents have linked sleep duration with depression.

“Healthy sleep is a necessity for physical, mental and emotional well-being,” American Academy of Sleep Medicine President Dr. M. Safwan Badr, said.

“This new research emphasizes that we can make an investment in our health by prioritizing sleep,” Badr said.

A study of 1,788 adult twins is the first to demonstrate a gene by environment interaction between self-reported habitual sleep duration and depressive symptoms.

Results suggest that sleep durations outside the normal range increase the genetic risk for depressive symptoms.

Among twins with a normal sleep duration of seven to 8.9 hours per night, the total heritability of depressive symptoms was 27 percent.

However, the genetic influence on depressive symptoms increased to 53 percent among twins with a short sleep duration of five hours per night and 49 percent among those who reported sleeping 10 hours per night.

“We were surprised that the heritability of depressive symptoms in twins with very short sleep was nearly twice the heritability in twins sleeping normal amounts of time,” principal investigator Dr. Nathaniel Watson, associate professor of neurology and co-director of the University of Washington Medicine Sleep Center in Seattle, said.

“Both short and excessively long sleep durations appear to activate genes related to depressive symptoms ,” Watson, who also serves on the board of directors of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said.

According to Watson, the study suggests that optimizing sleep may be one way to maximize the effectiveness of treatments for depression such as psychotherapy.

Another study of 4,175 individuals between 11 and 17 years of age is the first to document reciprocal effects for major depression and short sleep duration among adolescents using prospective data.

Results suggest sleeping six hours or less per night increases the risk for major depression, which in turn increases the risk for decreased sleep among adolescents.

The studies are published in the journal Sleep.

Source: The siasat Daily