Business Traveler, February 2015

n Health Wellness 20 n February 2015 Visit businesstravelerusa com T iredness comes with the territory when you travel for business but new research points to long term consequences for physical and psychological health and well being when we regularly miss out on quality sleep On average we sleep for two hours less than we did in 1960 and according to a recent survey commissioned by insurer Direct Line 48 percent of us say we need eight hours of sleep but two thirds of us only get six Still worse many frequent travelers get much less than this In the short term a lack of sleep affects your ability to concentrate and make decisions and renders you more irritable Your family and colleagues often bear the brunt of that In the longer term it puts you at risk of several serious diseases When you travel frequently you undermine two aspects of your sleep cycle your sleep homeostat which regulates the drive to sleep and the body clock or circadian rhythm says Professor Jason Ellis head of the Centre for Sleep Research at Northumbria University of Newcastle England Living out of sync with your body clock affects the activity of more than 700 genes according to new research from the University of Surrey The result is the disruption of several metabolic processes including how we respond to stress and the ability of cells to regenerate This may help to explain why regular disruption of sleep increases your risk of depression a finding by the University of Washington Medicine Sleep Center and puts you at higher risk of cancer and heart disease as proven by a wealth of research Scientists at the University of Chicago found that after only a few days of cutting back to four hours sleep a night people struggled to process glucose in a way similar to the early stages of diabetes Forcing your body to function when its supposed to be asleep puts it under tremendous strain Ellis says We know from studies on shift workers that it can lead to serious health problems One of the latest discoveries is that sleep detoxes the brain According to recent research from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York sleep helps to flush out waste products such as amyloid beta the protein that has been linked with Alzheimers disease Thankfully companies are finally taking the issue seriously says sleep physiologist Dr Guy Meadows clinical director of the Sleep School in London thesleepschool org and author of The Sleep Book How to Sleep Well Every Night Weve still got a long way to go to create the cultural shift we need to fully appreciate the importance of sleep Meadows says But when we speak to HR departments of top companies improving the sleep of employees is now as important as reducing stress and the two tend to go hand in hand Meadows runs a program called Sleep to Perform which provides company wide sleep need assessments seminars webinars and one on one coaching for those staff who need it most Its no surprise that they are often frequent travelers MartinSinclair a contributor to our forum writes Sleeping problems have affected me for the past 30 years of travel My solution up until April 2013 was to take sleeping pills which I fortunately recognized as being a serious problem I kicked the pills 100 percent and now conquer sleep problems with yoga Ellis says the problems can continue when you get home It can take as little as two weeks of disrupted sleep to trigger a long term sleep disorder he says So even at home you wake up in the night or find it hard to drop off What can you do if your job is ruining your sleep According to research from the Center for Disease Controls National Center for Health Statistics nearly nine million Americans turn to prescription sleep Aids for help Meadows says People who come to the Sleep School have had insomnia problems for 10 years on average and Id say 90 percent have tried five or six types of medication to help them sleep The catch 22 is that they become dependent and feel they cant sleep without them even though they realize theyre not sleeping well Last year a University of California study found that even occasional use was as bad for your health as smoking raising the risk of early death at least 36 fold Meadows doesnt think sticking to a wind down routine helps Sleep is a natural physiological process that cant be controlled and relying on unnatural night time rituals or props such as warm baths pills and alcohol can fuel sleep anxiety You can lie