Overview
- CDC guidance and a Physiological Reviews analysis detail immune fallout from insufficient sleep, including up to a 72% drop in natural killer cell activity after a single restricted night, blunted vaccine responses, and heightened inflammation.
- Experimental comparisons find 17–19 hours awake produces impairment comparable to a 0.05% blood alcohol concentration and 24 hours to 0.10%, with sleep experts noting performance after more than 20 hours resembles roughly six beers.
- Longitudinal research links routinely sleeping under six hours to higher risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and later-life dementia, with disrupted nighttime clearance of beta-amyloid cited as a potential mechanism.
- Clinicians emphasize first-line remedies such as consistent bed and wake times, dark and quiet bedrooms kept cool, limiting evening screens and late caffeine or alcohol, brief 20–30 minute naps, daytime exercise, and tryptophan-rich foods.
- Adolescents commonly log 6–6.5 hours despite an 8–10 hour need, and early school schedules conflict with teen circadian biology, raising concerns over learning, mood, and public safety.