By Sarah Hagerty
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have declared “insufficient sleep a public health epidemic.
“Sleep is increasingly recognized as important to public health, with sleep insufficiency linked to motor vehicle crashes, industrial disasters, and medical and other occupational errors. Unintentionally falling asleep, nodding off while driving, and having difficulty performing daily tasks because of sleepiness all may contribute to these hazardous outcomes. Persons experiencing sleep insufficiency are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, and obesity, as well as from cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity.”
The extent of the problem was reinforced last week when Jawbone (makers of those fitness trackers by the same name) released a jaw-dropping study of how little sleep we get in this country. Apparently everyone is up past midnight in Brooklyn; in fact city living in general is very hard on sleep, while large areas of the western U.S. don’t even make it till 10:30 p.m.
And speaking of keeping an eye on someone…Is anyone else bothered by the fact that these fitness tracking Big Brothers know how long we sleep? There’s a whole lot of personal information pumping into those data centers.
