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American Morning

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

Aired July 16, 2001 - 09:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: When it comes to sleep, are you getting enough? Well, if you're like most people in the U.S., you are probably not. It is estimated that 63 percent of Americans don't get enough sleep. The recommended average is eight hours per night.

However, I don't think I know one person who gets that much, and I don't think I'm alone, either. There are some of the -- here are some of the symptoms, rather, right now, you can take a look at this list, of those who have sleep deprivation. You can't drag yourself out of bed in the morning; you're constantly yawning or you snap at people; little problems upset you or you frequently turn to food as a pick me up.

Now, you can find more of this in the August issue of "Real Simple" magazine. And joining us from New York is the editor, Lesley Alderman. Good morning. How are you?

LESLEY ALDERMAN, "REAL SIMPLE": Good morning. Fine. How are you?

HARRIS: I'm OK. You look rather bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I guess you got a good night's sleep last night, huh?

ALDERMAN: Oh, yes.

HARRIS: Well, you know, I have to say, I was reading through the article here, I'm not surprised at all at some of the numbers that you come up with. But, you know, is this, how, but how big of a problem is this? I mean it seems as though, most people I know have adjusted to the amount of sleep that they get.

ALDERMAN: Well, I think those symptoms that you just showed on the screen show that you're probably, even if you're squeaking by on five or six hours a night, you're probably suffering. The problem is that it can really affect your long-term health and it gets to become kind of a macho thing where we all think we can sleep just five or six hours and then brag about it. But it really does have an affect and it can cause problems with diabetes, waking, even, and add to depression and anxiety.

HARRIS: Yes, but you say that could be, problems, those could be problems that pop up long-term down the road. How long-term are we talking here? I mean does it take a year, 10 years, 100 years, for this kind of problem to manifest itself? ALDERMAN: Well, most of the things you notice right away. I mean it definitely contributes to your anxiety and your stress level, which is the reason most of us don't sleep enough to begin with. But it's one of those incremental changes that creeps up on you over time. Basically, you're wearing our your system, that time at night when you're supposed to be recharging your batteries, you're actually gradually wearing them down.

HARRIS: Yes. How about differences between men and women? Do you find any?

ALDERMAN: Women actually, in fact, do tend to be a little more sleep deprived than men. They only sleep about six hours and 41 minutes on average a night, and as you said, the recommended is eight hours. And part of that is just women tend to have more responsibilities and a greater degree of responsibilities, especially if they're working and parenting, they have a job, they have children, they're running the household. Women also, just because of their biology, tend to worry and ruminate more and those are things that really interfere with sleep.

So when you're lying down and your head is on the pillow, you're going over all the day's activities and problems and all the things that you have to do the next day while your bed mate is, you know, sound asleep.

HARRIS: Yes. OK, let's get right to the tips then. We're going to be asking people to e-mail us any suggestions they have out there, but let's start with yours.

ALDERMAN: Yes. It's really important for people to try to get up at the same time every day rather than...

HARRIS: Now, why is that? Even on the weekends?

ALDERMAN: Even on the weekends. You want to create a routine. If you're really having chronic sleep deprivation, you want to feel like you have, your body has a certain set clock. So that's very important, as much as possible.

HARRIS: All right. How about getting aerobic exercise?

ALDERMAN: It's really, it's good for you to get out every day and maybe 20 or 30 minutes, especially if you can get out into the sunlight, because that helps reset your body's clocks if you're sort of nodding off and feeling sleepy. And it also just makes you feel better if you're kind of going through some sort of stressed out period in your life. It's also important to maybe do something relaxing and good for yourself.

If you're going through a particularly stressful period, make sure you do something that's kind of a treat for yourself. We've found that women often just stay up later so they have some time to themselves. So they'll stay up past midnight just so they can, you know, read a magazine or call friends.

HARRIS: And that makes it even tougher to wake up at the same time the next morning.

ALDERMAN: Right.

HARRIS: Let me ask you about the one item that's on the list you didn't mention, sunlight, and that seems kind of strange that getting sunlight will help you sleep?

ALDERMAN: Sunlight is very important and people, it helps you reset your body clock. And so it tells your body that this is the awake time, this is the time to be awake. That's why people have a very hard time when the, in time changes or places where, you know, the sun is out till midnight, your body is thinking oh, this is awake. This is the time to be out doing things. So if you're out in the sunlight, it just naturally gives you a little jolt of energy.

HARRIS: All right, I'm still looking for a way to cheat here on this test. But I want to ask you one thing. You say that, you know, over time shaving 30 minutes or so off your sleep will affect you long-term. But doesn't it really help when you do get one good weekend to just veg out and totally catch up on all your rest?

ALDERMAN: I mean they're always saying oh, you can never catch up on sleep. But I think it definitely does if you're really chronically exhausted to just spend, you know, a weekend really relaxing and sleeping and sleeping. But it's not a good way because it's just basically like wearing yourself out and then catching up and you're sort of putting yourself into this pull-push. Better to create those nice even hours of uninterrupted sleep as many nights as possible.

It's also important for people who are having a hard time getting to sleep to really create a wind down time. I think we all get so wound up during the day that we don't really have that buffer between sort of the energy, energized hour and the get to sleep hour. So that's another important thing that people should be aware of.

HARRIS: That's a good point and some good advice. We sure do appreciate it. Thank you very much, Lesley Alderman. Good luck with you and "Real Simple" magazine and that article.

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