Less Masterchef, more sleep

One very significant event in our household - the culmination of Masterchef with Julie's victory - along with a weekend of unanticipated, work-related sleep deprivation, brings to mind a recent article in Sleep Journal.

Increased time spent working is reliably associated with less time sleeping; and less time sleeping is bad for us. Sleep time of less than 7 hours per day is associated with increased rates of obesity, health problems and death from disease. Up to 40% of adults in the USA sleep less than 7 hours, putting themselves at risk of future health problems. Assuming that people are not going to work less (and earn less money) to simply sleep more, how should we find more time for sleep?

According to this article (SLEEP 2009;32(6):747-52), we should - perhaps - watch less TV. This time-use survey of over 20000 people found that TV viewing was by far the favoured evening activity - pursued by over 65% of respondents in the 2 hours prior to bed, and accounting for over 50% of that time period on average.

In other words, if people were not watching television they may have been able to spend an extra hour, on average, in bed.

Masterchef is over - and in our house, now, the dishwasher is packed an hour earlier, the kids are in bed earlier and ...... well, tonight we are watching Grand Designs.

Andrew