2021-08-23
A third of Americans sleep less than recommended. While insufficient sleep is often considered quite common, it can have a significant and detrimental effect on people’s health. Even after a night of too little sleep, a person’s cognitive abilities can drop dramatically in the short term.
It is generally recommended that adults sleep about seven or more hours a night, but sleeping habits vary significantly across the country.
Approximately 31.2% of Utah residents over the age of 18 report having less than seven hours of sleep a night, the sixth lowest percentage in the country. Nationwide, 35.2% of Americans this age report insufficient sleep.
In addition to cognitive abilities, regular sleep less than seven hours a night has been linked to a number of negative physical health effects, including an increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease.
In Utah, 24.4% of people report having high blood pressure, the lowest percentage in the United States. Across the country, 32.9% of Americans have high blood pressure. About 7.5% of the state’s population aged 20 and over have diabetes, the second lowest percentage and compared to a national diabetes prevalence of 10.5% in people 20 years and older.
It has been shown that lack of sleep is a contributing factor to obesity. Sleep deprivation messes up the two hormones that control appetite – ghrelin, which signals hunger, and leptin, which shows you are full.
Lack of sleep leads to increased ghrelin levels (increased appetite) and decreased leptin levels (decreased feeling of fullness). Approximately 27.0% of Utah adults are obese, the 8th lowest percentage in the US and compared to the national adult obesity rate of 29.7%.
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