Most Kenyans deep in sleep debt

Dr Kizito Lubano brings you the final part of our sleep series.

Everyday, Jane Wangare sets her alarm at 4:30am to ready herself and her children for school.

Besides Wangare being an elementary teacher at Kibera Academy, she also owns a mitumba clothes business. On weekends, she says, "I’ve just got to catch up on my sleep."

Multiply her story about four million times and you’ve got a snapshot of Kenya’s sleep situation.

It’s no secret that we live in a 24/7 society. There are many opportunities to be exploited and too little time left for sleeping.

If one is not glued to a late night movie on TV, they are on FaceBook, Twitter, Skype or engaged in long work shifts.

Often, our sleep deficit is related to too much caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, most of which is inked to work related stress.

Health problems

Yet there’s strong evidence that lost sleep is a serious matter. Several large studies have linked sleep deficits with poor work performance, driving accidents, relationship dilemmas and mood problems like anger and depression.

A growing list of health risks like heart diseases, diabetes and obesity have also been linked to chronic sleep loss.

People seem to be ignorant of the importance of sleep and health consequences of not getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis.

This has caused sleep disorders to be severely under-diagnosed and under-treated.

Over the past decade, researchers have learned much about the science of sleep, with nearly 100 identified sleep disorders identified.

Hypersomnia is defined as excessive daytime sleepiness without an obvious cause.

The result is sleepiness, which results in impaired sustained attention, with adverse, occasionally disastrous consequences in the classroom, workplace or the highways.

It is likely that more than 10,000 road crashes occur annually in Kenya due to driving while drowsy.

The most common cause of hypersomnia is voluntary sleep deprivation as result of social or economic reasons — like driving for long periods, studies, work or surfing the Internet.

Insomnia is one of the most common sleep complaints. It is the condition of having trouble with falling or staying asleep.

It is the inability to obtain sleep that is sufficiently long or good enough to result in feeling rested or restored.

Depression has been listed as a cause of insomnia; however, for many people, untreated insomnia may be a risk factor for depression. There seems to be a genetic component to insomnia. Unfortunately, there are several major disasters that have occurred and were all linked to too little sleep in the workplace.

Many sleep-deprived workers are in safety-sensitive positions, like health care workers and pilots.

Indeed, doctors, nurses and other health professionals are especially vulnerable to the effects of sleep loss and patient safety may suffer because of it.

Danger

At the same time, sleep-deprived drivers are just as dangerous as drunk drivers.

But many people are too tired to realise how sleep-deprived they are, hence the slower reaction time and weak memory amongst other thinking impairments.

Sleep-deprived people often don’t realise their vulnerability to sleepiness and are often living in self-denial.

Majority of people need between seven and eight hours of sleep each night to feel refreshed and function optimally. Though vulnerability to sleep deficits varies greatly, if you are sleeping for only four hours a night, your brain reacts as though you haven’t slept at all for three consecutive nights.

Recent studies conducted among men and women in several countries show that chronic sleep deprivation increases risk of early death.

People who get less sleep are also at risk of being overweight and obese.

Therefore, every time you fail to have a good night sleep, think of the ultimate price you are paying.