Despite the fact that the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) has made it clear how important sleep is to a person’s health, millions continue to suffer from a lack of enough sleep. In fact studies reveal that over 40 million Americans are affected by 70 different sleep disorders.
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As proof of how serious this has become, 60 percent of American adults admit to having sleep problems at least a couple nights a week. The majority of those who suffer from these sleep problems don’t realize it and therefore aren’t receiving treatment for them. What’s more at least a couple times a month 40 percent of American adults have incidents of sleepiness during the day hours that are so severe that it interferes with their daily routines and activities. For 20 percent of them, day-time sleepiness is a problem several days a week.
The amount of sleep an individual require varies from person to person. Generally it is found that the average healthy individual can be alert for 16 hours a day, needing 8 hours of sleep to maintain this level of energy. In some cases there are those who suffer no sleepiness during the day requiring as little as 6 hours of sleep. On the other hand, many need as much as 10 hours of sleep if they expect to perform during the day at peak performance.
As a person gets older their need for sleep is as important as it is when they are younger, but they have difficulty sleeping for 6 to 8 hours at one time giving the impression that they don’t need the same amount of sleep. But that simply isn’t true.
