Advantages of a Good Night’s Sleep

The good educator insists on exercise, play, and plentiful sleep: "the great cordial of nature."
John Locke (1632-1704)

Before Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb, people slept an average of 10 hours a night. Now, according to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2008 Sleep in America poll, the average time spent in bed by the average American is 6 hours and 55 minutes - with 6 hours and 40 minutes spent actually sleeping. And according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, at least 40 million Americans suffer from chronic, long-term sleep disorders each year, and an additional 20 million experience occasional sleeping problems.

The short term results of sleep deprivation and low quality sleep are obvious to most people, and include fatigue, lack of energy and exhaustion. But many of the long term effects of sleep are less well known. A study in 2006 (Role of sleep duration and quality in the risk and severity of type 2 diabetes mellitus. KL. Knutson, AM. Ryden, BA. Mander, E. Van Cauter , Arch Intern Med, 2006, vol. 166, pp. 1768—1774) found that in diabetics, inadequate sleep (too little, or of poor quality) is associated with deterioration in blood glucose control in type 2 diabetics. Another study done by the American Diabetes Association assessed the long-term relationship between sleep duration and the incidence of clinical diabetes. The study concluded that short and long sleep durations increase the risk of developing diabetes, independent of confounding factors.

Lack of sleep has also been linked to weight gain. A study presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference shows that middle-aged women who sleep 5 or fewer hours each night weigh an average of 2.5 kg more than those who sleep for at least 7 hours. After adjusting for other factors including smoking, snoring, caffeine and alcohol intake, medication, and menopausal status, the researchers found that the women sleeping 5 or fewer hours per night were 32% more likely to experience major weight gain, defined as an increase of 33 lb or more, and 15% more likely to become obese during the 16-year study period than the women who slept at least 7 hours per night.

Sleep deprivation is also strongly linked to heart damage. According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, University of Chicago scientists outfitted 500 healthy, middle-aged volunteers in their early 40s with an $850 device called an actigraph to give an objective read-out of how much people actually sleep. To measure people's underlying heart health, the researchers did computerized tomography, or CT, scans of their coronary arteries. The scans can reveal telltale deposits called calcifications, which are considered a strong marker of heart disease.

When they put it all together, the researchers got a surprising result. Those who averaged five or fewer hours of sleep had a much bigger incidence of silent heart disease. Twenty-seven percent developed coronary artery calcification over the five years of follow-up. But those who slept seven hours or more, on average, only 6 percent developed coronary artery calcification. After researchers subtracted out the effects of other known coronary risk factors, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking, the sleep-deprived people had 4.5 times the risk of heart disease.

A study published in January 2009 in Archives of Internal Medicine found that people who slept less than seven hours were about three times more likely to get a cold than people who slept eight hours or more a night. And Dr. Jeffrey Ellenbogen of the Harvard Medical School found that sleep protects memories from interference. The more quickly you fall asleep after studying for a test or learning a new skill, the more likely you are to remember it later.

Cuddle Ewe™ can help you get a better night’s sleep. A handful of our specially selected and processed wool has a unique, buoyant, resiliency that gently yields to the contours of your entire body so that its weight is supported and diffused more evenly over your mattress. Your weight is much less concentrated at hips, shoulders, and other contact points with your bed and you feel lighter -- almost as if floating. This cradled comfort enables you to drift off to sleep much sooner than you may have experienced and also sleep longer in one position. As a result, you won't toss and turn as much and you will experience a deeper, more restful sleep. And when you awake, you feel physically and mentally regenerated -- your body "feels happy" as one Underquilt owner expressed it. Click on any of these links to learn more:

• All Wool Mattress Toppers
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