BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 75SLEEPILLUSTRATION: MAITÉ FRANCHI
an you keep your eyes open
long enough to read this
article? No offence taken if
you can’t. The Royal College
of Psychiatrists says that one
in five of us feels unusually tired at any one
time, and one in 10 feels permanently fatigued.
Tiredness and fatigue are behind 20 per cent of
UK doctor consultations, according to a recent
survey of GPs. No wonder doctors are often
jotting down a handy new acronym – TATT
(Tired All The Time) – in patient notes. Or that
UK sales of energy drinks shot up by 155 per
cent between 2006 and 2014. We are, it seems,
an exhausted nation.
Tiredness is no joke. Sleep deprivation brings
a heavy mental and physical toll. Around 20
per cent of accidents on major roads are sleep-
related. Plus, people who are sleep-deprived
lose the ability to be positive-minded, which
researchers from the University of Pennsylvania
say is likely to increase the likelihood of
depression. There’s also evidence that sleep
deprivation increases the risk of obesity, heart
disease, diabetes and stroke.
Even if you’re getting enough sleep, feeling
constantly fatigued can be bad for you. Research
from the University of Alabama has found that
working hard while fatigued increases blood
pressure. This is because tired people increase
their effort to make up for their diminished
capability. And for those of us with conditions
such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)
and cancer, it severely restricts quality of life.
For millions of others, unexplained tiredness
regularly rumbles in the background. 5