Spend A Little Less Time Counting Sheep: Keeping Awake the Fountain of Youth

Everyone’s favorite piece of advice is to get some sleep and you’ll feel better in the morning, it turns out that Associated Press agrees that if you sleep less and you’re between the ages of sixty and seventy, you’ll live longer. People between the ages of 30-102 get approximately 6 or seven hours and that's enough rest for your brain to work in an intelligent capacity the next day. People whom got the suggested amount of 8 hours of sleep have a higher risk of meeting the maker, than people who only get three to four hours of sleep.  Researchers from UC San Diego Medical School have studied this extensively. Sleep is the most studied subject because the unconscious is such an interesting field of study no matter what aspect you choose to focus on.

The study confirms that only six to seven hours, the study cannot yet determine why people who get hours are at a higher risk for death.  Dr. Daniel K. Kirkpike, whom led this study, stated “We don’t know if long periods of sleep leads to death, but additional studies are still being compiled to verify its accuracy. Additional studies state that if a person accumulates 6.5 hours and sets their alarm clocks earlier, they should be in tip-top shape by morning. This study was performed in as a step toward cancer prevention. This sleep study was done from 1982-1988 however, the results were not released until recently because of the time and energy it took to compile the information. The study leaves many questions unanswered for instance what to do if you saw a doctor and it still doesn’t help?

WebMD has filled in the gaps and answers my question about what to do when you cannot sleep. First, they suggest cutting all caffeine before you normally sleep. Secondly, they suggest avoiding alcohol as it serves as an inhibiter. Thirdly, to exercise when it’s convent for you. I suggest right before bed because it’ll physically tire the body out naturally. After the workout, take a shower and let the water wash over. Participants of these studies have sleep issues and insomnia and the mortality rate didn’t rotate either way. Individuals who use sleeping pills are prone to a premature death as opposed to those who don’t utilize them as often. Dr. Kirkpike states that insomnia is unrelated to short sleep, but patients mostly complain when their sleep rotations are normal. Thus the problem is: people are not keeping in step with their sleep regimes.  Patient’s complaints of insomnia are those of depression.  With 1.1 million patients, the first large sleep scale study to take in account demographics such as; age, diet, exercise, and health problems.   Previous sleep studies suggest seven to eight hours for the body to recover from the days activities.