Sleep is a fundamental human right crucial for overall health and well-being, yet it remains elusive for many.
However, experts point out that Korean adolescents, truck drivers, shift workers, and women who are raising children do not get enough sleep and need policy support not only from individuals but from the social community and the government for healthy sleep.
On Wednesday, Professor Yang Kwang-ik of the Department of Neurology at Soon Chun Hyang University Cheonan Hospital, who also heads the Korean Society of Sleep Medicine (KSSM), made similar points in his presentation, “Sleep Problems and Health of Korean Youth,” to celebrate the World Sleep Day on Friday.
According to Professor Yang, the U.S. NSF (National Sleep Foundation) classifies proper sleep time as 6.9 to 8.4 hours for children between the ages of 11 and 18. However, according to a Korean youth sleep survey conducted in 2011, it was 5.5 to 7.5 hours on weekdays and 8.0 to 9.5 hours on weekends.
In particular, Korean adolescents tend to show wider gaps as their grades go up due to the specificity of their studies while making up for insufficient sleep during weekends.
This is in part biological but also includes other factors, such as schoolwork, electronic devices used in bed (TV, computer), the Internet, night-time social communication, such as Facebook, Instagram, and texting, sleep stealers like caffeine, and a family environment where parents sleep late, according to Professor Yang.
The problem is that this sleep imbalance in adolescence is associated with increased depressive tendencies and obesity, as well as increased markers for suicide with fewer hours of sleep, he pointed out.
For adolescents who are always sleep-deprived during the week, it's a good idea to allow them to make up for lost sleep on the weekends to lower their suicidal and depressive tendencies, he noted.
"It has been pointed out many times that adolescents need attention and measures because insufficient sleep time can cause obesity and depression. However, it seems that this has not been communicated to these children," Yang said. "From now on, we should actively respond to sleep problems that may be overlooked by adolescents and take attention and measures to diagnose and solve sleep disorders in adolescents early."
Yang noted that in addition to adolescents, the community and the country need to pay attention to women who are vulnerable to sleep, such as truck drivers, shift workers, and women raising children.
"National measures are needed, such as encouraging men to take paternity leave so that they can take turns caring for their children with women, allowing truck drivers to have a partner who can take turns driving when driving for more than a certain number of hours, and ensuring shift workers get a few hours of rest when working at night," he suggested.