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By Zebulen Riess


But for the 40 million estimated Americans who suffer from a chronic sleep disorder, going to bed doesn't necessarily mean going to sleep. And for the 20 to 30 million others who experience occasional sleep disturbances, nighttime isn't a picnic. Some researchers have postulated that the United States is the most sleep deprived country. And it's no wonder. With 24-hour factories and malls, high stress levels at work, and round-the-clock schedules, Americans barely have time to breathe, much less sleep a good 8 hours every night.

Even when you want to sleep, the cares of the day sometimes keep you from closing your eyes. In fact, according to the National Sleep Foundation, on any given night, slightly more than 1-4 Americans rate the quality of their night's sleep as either "fair" or "poor"

The researchers found that those who slept fewer hours are much more likely to have BP pressure readings than those who slept longer. These sleep-starved adults were also more likely to develop hypertension pressure over time.

But maybe you don't have a chronic sleep disorder. Perhaps you are just stressed out and your bedroom is too crowded and too hot, or your mattress too hard.

Sleep, Blessed Sleep

Perhaps you take the ability to sleep for granted, but for the estimated 40 million Americans who suffer from a sleep disorder, falling asleep and staying asleep doesn't come so easily. A person with a sleep disorder usually sleeps poorly or not enough so they wake up lousy.

Too frequently sleep disorders go unrecognized, undiagnosed and untreated. The cost to individuals and to society is huge: more than 100,000 automobile accidents, many fatal, are directly attributed to sleep-deprived workers.

In addition, experts say that many on-the-job accidents are caused in part by poor decisions and responses made by sleep-deprived workers.

Only a lucky 1% of subjects got more than 8 hours a night. Black men tended to get the fewest hours of sleep. "These two observations suggested the intriguing possibility that the well-documented higher blood pressure in African Americans and men might be partly related to sleep duration," the study authors conclude.

In addition, a lack of sleep adversely affects both memory and concentration, which can negatively influence a person's job performance. And the list of problems caused by lack of sleep goes on and on

If you or your significant other, like a child, a family member or close friend has a problem sleeping, the first step is to identify the problem and to seek treatment as soon as possible. Remember, chronic sleep deprivation, no matter what the cause is dangerous and potentially fatal.

If you don't get the sleep you need, you don't restore and refresh you brain and body. You are basically running on empty.

Also sleeplessness can be torture. Interrogators commonly use sleep deprivation as part of the interrogation process designed to break and confuse prisoners (whether criminal, war or political) in order to extract information.

After being deprived of sleep, many people are ready to answer any question as long as they'll be allowed to sleep. With little or no sleep, people feel sick. Their bodies are sluggish and uncoordinated, and their minds feel mush.

This study encourages anyone who's worried about lack of sleep effects on hypertension to ensure they have a regular sleep pattern, as well as taking some of the other steps experts recommend to keep your blood pressure under control.




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