CANBERRA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Four in 10 Australians are suffering from sleep deprivation, a report commissioned by the nation’s government has found.
The report from the government’s sleep health awareness inquiry, which was released publicly by Health Minister Greg Hunt on Wednesday night, revealed that lost productivity as a result of sleep deprivation costs Australia’s economy 26.2 billion Australian dollars (18.7 billion U.S. dollars) every year.
Inadequate sleep was a factor in more than 3,000 deaths in 2016-17, the inquiry found, more than 77 percent of which were "related to the effects of inadequate sleep on heart conditions, particularly among those people experiencing obstructive sleep apnoea.”
Approximately 20 percent of Australians suffer from sleep disorders such as sleep apnoea and insomnia but most cases are undiagnosed.
According to the 170-page report, only five bad nights of sleep can put the human body in a pre-diabetic state and reduce the amount of testosterone produced by males.
"Having low levels of sleep is worn like a badge of honor," Prof. Alan Yang from the Australian Sleep Association, one of the experts who contributed to the report, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
"Politicians and even the medical professions ourselves have been guilty of working long hours, restricting sleep times and feeling that this is something that toughens you up. But in actual fact, it's the opposite."
The report called for the government to prioritize sleep health as a national priority, develop a nationally consistent approach to working hours and implement a national sleep health awareness campaign.
University of South Australia psychologist Siobhan Banks said that the report represented the first time an Australian government acknowledged sleep as a priority.
"It often doesn't seem to get that same attention from a research or funding perspective," she said.
"Sleep is also something where if people do have a problem with it, they often suffer in silence and don't really talk about it."
