14 DAY TRIAL // There is a flow of researches showing how the lack of sleep impacts your brain functions, from learning to memory. But the impact on people's life is much more severe than it could be guessed, plummeting productivity, safety, health, relationships and... sex. Too much work and too little sleep resulted in the fact that 20% of the Americans have lost interest in sex. This is the result of a research made by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) on a poll of 1,000 American adults.
"Longer work days and more access to the workplace through the Internet and other technology appear to be causing Americans to get less sleep. Nearly 50 million Americans chronically suffer from sleep problems and disorders that affect their careers, their personal relationships and safety on the roads," said Darrel Drobnich, head of the NSF.
The research revealed that 36% of the Americans fell asleep while driving, and about 66% have sleep issues, like waking at night or difficulties in falling asleep.
American adults have an average daily sleep time of 6 hours and 40 minutes, less than what doctors recommend, from 7 hours and 18 minutes to 8 hours.
"Studies show that habitually getting inadequate sleep - less than seven or eight hours each night - creates long-lasting changes to one's ability to think and function well during the day," said Thomas Balkin, the deputy head of the NSF.
The main reason why most Americans have such short sleep periods is because the large time intervals spent at work or commuting. 33% of the Americans work at least 10 hours daily, and 20% spend about 10 hours working from home. At the same time, the average commute time was found to exceed 45 minutes.
Shift-workers, mainly men (70%), are the most affected: 33% sleep less than 6 hours a night on workdays, 48% drove drowsy, and 25 % reported an impaired sex life.