Headline Nov 04, 2015/ *Quiet Please* : ''' STUDENTS FAST ASLEEP '''

*Quiet Please* : 

''' STUDENTS FAST ASLEEP '''

FOR YEARS AND years, public health authorities have warned that smartphones, television screens-

And the hectic pace of modern life are disrupting natural sleep patterns, fuelling an epidemic of sleep deprivation.

Americans, for instance, sleep two or three hours less today by some estimates than they did before the  industrial revolution.

But a new study is challenging that notion:

It found that Americans on average sleep as much as people in three hunter-gatherer societies where there is no electricity and lifestyles have remained largely the same for thousands of years.

If anything, the hunter-gatherer communities involved in the study  -the Hadza and San tribes of Africa, and the Tsimane people of South America  -slept even less than many Americans.

Health authorities have long suggested that getting a minimum of hours  on a consistent basis is a necessity for good health. Many studies suggest that lack of sleep, independent of other factors like physical activity, is associated with obesity and chronic disease.

Yet the hunter-gatherers included in the study, published in  Current Biology, were relatively fit and healthy despite regularly sleeping for periods near the low end of those in industrialized societies. 

Previous research shows that their daily energy expenditure is about the same as most Americans', suggesting physical activity is not the reason for their relative good health.

The prevailing notion in sleep medicine is that humans evolved to go to bed when the sun goes down, and that by and large we stay up much later than we should because we are flooded with artificial light, said Jerome Siegel, the lead author of the new study and a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles.

But Dr. Siegel and his colleagues found no evidence of this. The hunter gatherer groups they studied, which slept outside or in crude huts, did not go to sleep when the sun went down. 

Usually they stayed awake for three or four hours past sunset, with no light exposure other the faint glow of a small fire that would keep animals away and provide a bit of warmth in the winter. Most days they would wake up about an hour before sunrise.

In a typical night, they slept just six and half hours. In the United States, most adults sleep seven hours or more a night, though a significant portion of the population sleep less.

''I think this paper is going to transform the field of sleep,'' said John Peever, a sleep expert at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the new research. 

''Its difficult to envision how we can claim that Western society is highly sleep deprived if these groups that live without all these modern distractions and pressing schedules sleep less or about the same amount as average Joe does here in North America.  

In June, two of the leading sleep associations  -the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society issued recommendations stating that adult should sleep seven or more hours on a regular basis.

Sleeping less is linked to wait gain and obesity, hypertension, heart disease and stroke, depression and an increased risk of death, the recommendations said.

Nathaniel Watson, the president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, pointed out that in the new study, the hunter-gatherer societies were found to have a sleep period -meaning the time they were actually in bed-

Of roughly seven to eight and a half hours, which he said was consistent with his group's recommendations.

The question of how much sleep people require is a delicate one, Mr. Watson said: ''Really it's just the amount that allows people to wake up feeling refreshed and alert.

The Honour and Serving of this latest ''Operational Research'' on Health continues. Thank you for reading and see Ya all on the following one.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Reveille '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless