Extract from ABC News
Too many young Australians are not getting a good night's sleep, with a quarter saying they regularly wake up feeling not well-rested, putting their physical and mental health at risk, according to new research.
Key points:
- The study examined the sleep of 1,234 young Australian adults
- Those studied were part of Western Australia's Raine Study
- Almost a third of participants got less than the recommended amount of sleep
It is the first study to examine the sleep health of young Australian adults, using both a questionnaire and an analysis of their sleeping habits.
Of the 1,234 people who took part in the research, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health on Tuesday, 60 per cent said their sleep was constantly changing and irregular.
Called "Sleep health of young adults in Western Australia and associations with physical and mental health", the study also found 30 per cent of the participants slept less than the optimal seven to nine hours a night, 18 per cent took more than 30 minutes to fall asleep and 60 per cent did not have regular sleep hours.
Clinical psychologist and lead researcher Dr Alex Metse, from the University of the Sunshine Coast, said 10 per cent also reported their bad night's sleep noticeably impacted how alert they felt during the day.
"We wanted to see which of these dimensions were most strongly associated with the physical and mental health outcomes that we considered," Dr Metse said.
"And really interestingly, we found it was that young adults' satisfaction with their sleep and reports on how alert they were feeling during the day that were most strongly associated with those outcomes."
Young adults 'particularly vulnerable'
The study acknowledges sleep disorders, such as insomnia or sleep apnoea, are well associated with significant health impacts.
But it said poor sleep, due to not enough, too much, irregular or unsatisfactory sleep was also a risk factor "for conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression and poorer mental and physical health generally".
This was particularly important in young adulthood, which the study said was a "critical phase for the development of a healthy lifestyle and habits, which often continue into adulthood".
"Young adults, therefore, may be particularly vulnerable to experiencing poor sleep that persists into adulthood and, as a result, are a priority population for primary and secondary prevention efforts to promote sleep health and reduce the risk of various chronic diseases," the report said.
The 1,234 participants in the study come from the Western Australian Raine Study, the oldest pre-birth longitudinal study in the world.
It began in 1989 when 2,900 pregnant women first volunteered to be part of the study and extensive data was collected during pregnancy and at the birth of their children.
Then from 2012-2014 a follow-up was conducted, with those children born into the study in their early 20s, looking into their sleep, activity, lung health and work.
The sleep aspect involved a questionnaire and a sleep study across two nights.
It is from that data that the new study derived its conclusions.
Push for change
Dr Metse and the other researchers believe the findings can help improve public health, through education campaigns to inform the public about what a "normal" night of sleep can look like, change expectations, and create healthy sleeping habits.
They also suggest screening guidelines where a doctor or other health practitioner could ask young adults a question or two about how well they sleep to identify who might be at risk of poor physical and mental health related to sleep.
"It would be a multi-pronged public health intervention, I suspect, but one part of that might be trying to detect poor sleep, that might be a risk factor for poor health, so that we can then start the ball rolling in helping young people to optimise their sleep," Dr Metse said.
Terry Slevin, chief executive of the Public Health Association of Australia, said the study reinforced how important it was to get a good night's sleep.
"Like good nutrition, like good physical activity, you need to plan for it, you need to do it well," Adjunct Professor Slevin said.
He agreed, a simple question to someone about how they are sleeping might be an important starting point.
"It's inoffensive," he said.
"'How's your sleep going?', is a neutral sort of question that could be a window into other health issues that might be around the corner."
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