One in ten people have gotten inadequate rest every night for 30 days in a row

Sleep-deprivation can wreak havoc in a person’s life, and it’s much more common than most of us realize. (For instance, increased muscle pain is almost certainly one of the consequences of sleep deprivation.) A new paper from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report reports that about 30% of American adults are getting less than 7 hours per night (and of course many of those are getting much less), and at least 10% of people have gotten “insufficient rest or sleep on all days during the preceding 30 days.” That’s one in ten people getting inadequate rest every night for 30 days in a row! (Sounds like me and several people I know, actually.)

The importance of chronic sleep insufficiency is under-recognized as a public health problem, despite being associated with numerous physical and mental health problems, injury, loss of productivity, and mortality. Health-care providers should consider adding an assessment of chronic rest or sleep insufficiency to routine office visits so they can make needed interventions or referrals to sleep specialists.

I have long believed that this was an almost completely neglected consideration in chronic pain care. For some ideas and science about the relationship between sleep deprivation and muscle pain, see Insomnia Until it Hurts.

Closing thought: if 1 in 10 people have gotten inadequate rest every night for 30 days … how many got inadequate rest for 29 days? 28? 27?