We're all exhausted all the time — here's how we could fix it
David Moir/Reuters
In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a major survey of more than 70,000 Americans to find out exactly how bad our sleeping habits are.
The results were discouraging.
More than a third of respondents said they got less than seven hours of sleep a night, and 38% admitted they had accidentally dozed off during the day at least once during the past month. About a tenth of Americans struggle with chronic insomnia, and millions more suffer from a litany of sleep disorders.
Our collective sleeplessness has been tied to car crashes, industrial disasters, and nuclear reactor meltdowns, not to mention an increased risk of diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression, and early death.
Fixing this crisis should be a public health priority, argue two social scientists in a recent issue of the journal Psychological Science. And they have five concrete policy suggestions on how to we could make some significant headway.
They argue we should:
1. Create national standards that make start times later for high schools and middle schools.
2. Regulate working hours and schedules more strictly to allow for adequate sleep.
3. Abolish daylight savings time, which has been shown to disrupt sleep.
4. Launch a public education campaign to spread the word on the ill effects of nighttime device use.
5. Make at-home testing for sleep disorders more accessible, since getting diagnosed is the first step to getting treated.
These suggestions are ambitious and logistically challenging, the authors acknowledge, but "the investments involved in meeting those challenges will likely yield a very large payoff."
At the very least, there would be fewer obstacles between the average American and a good night's sleep.
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