Optimal Sleep Duration Can Lower Disease Risk

JAKARTA - Recent research states that optimal sleep time will reduce the risk of absence from work due to illness, according to a joint study with the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project. The risk of prolonged illness sharply increases in those reported to have less than 6 hours of sleep or more than 9 hours every night. This is the study published in the journal Sleep.

Further analysis found that the optimal duration of sleep is between 7 and 8 hours every night (7 hours 38 minutes for women and 7 hours 46 minutes for men). According to these results, insomnia and related symptoms, waking up early in the morning, feeling tireder than others and taking sleeping pills, consistently also deal with a significant increase in work time due to illness.

"The optimal duration of sleep must be promoted, such as sleeping for too long or too briefly indicating health problems," said a researcher from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Tea Lallukka, PhD.

"Those who sleep five hours or less, or 10 hours or more, do not come to work every year for 4.6-8.9 days, compared to those who sleep optimally," he said as reported by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine page.

Commenting on these findings, the president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Dr Timothy Morgenthaler, said the lack of sleep contributed to several current public health epidemics such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity.

"... at least seven hours of sleep at night is key to overall health, which means reduced time of illness," he said, who is also a spokesman for one of the healthy sleep projects.

To arrive at these findings, the researchers conducted a national survey involving 3,760 men and women aged 30-64 years in Finland. They work at all times the year before the survey was conducted. To find out the characteristics of sleep of these participants, researchers used a questionnaire and a physical examination conducted by doctors. The researchers also collected data on the absence of work of participants from the Finnish Social Insurance Institute. They followed this data for seven years.

"Insomnia symptoms must be detected early to help prevent disease and decrease health. The success of insomnia prevention not only improves the health and workability of employees, but can also save costs due to disease," said Lalluka.