That’s what the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) is asking during Sleep Awareness Week to help everyone better understand why sleep matters. And what you know probably depends on your own experiences. Are you living with insomnia or a chronic condition that impacts your sleep? Or do you just have a restless night every once in a while?
Back in 2013, more than 5,000 PatientsLikeMe members participated in a survey about their sleeping habits, and we shared what the community helped to uncover (get it!?) in a series of infographics on the blog. Nearly a third of respondents never (5%) or rarely (25%) got a good night’s sleep, and almost half (44%) frequently woke up during the night. Poor sleep is the norm for people living with life-changing health conditions, and it affects everything from driving to relationships and sex – view the infographics here.
To help launch Sleep Awareness Week, the NSF released their “Sleep in America” poll results today, including the 2015 Sleep and Pain survey, which looked to find if stress and poor health were related to shorter sleep durations and lower quality sleep. The poll found that:
- Greater stress was associated with less sleep and worse sleep quality
- Pain was related to greater sleep debt – the gap between how much people say they need and the amount they’re actually getting1
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1 http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-polls-data/2015-sleep-and-pain