Sleeplessness, society’s biggest health risks

In Saturday’s piece, we began to address health risks that resulted from the cumulative effects of stressful work practices. We only touched on a small portion of the things we’ve allowed to change our lifestyles for the worse. There are other more prevalent and less obvious challenges that take us away from being physically balanced.

Lack of sleep is perhaps the most pervasive problem in our workforce today, even some well-known athletes here and abroad suffer from insomnia, or being unable to relax their minds enough to readily sleep, or have very shallow, fitful sleep. Even for broadcasters like myself, the adrenaline rush of being around large emotional crowds gets us so pumped up, it would take us a long time to wind down and fall asleep unless we’ve learned certain processes like meditation to deal with it. That’s one reason why many famous musicians cause destruction in their hotel rooms before or after major concerts: they can’t release all their pent-up energy.

We’ve accepted lack of sleep as a part of modern existence. But it is a serious health threat, and consequently prevents us from being physically active, engaging in sports, making proper decisions and having a healthy diet. In the BPO industry for example, long tenures at facilities that require employees to have an inverted sleep schedule is starting to show links to emotional and mental problems after. Those of us in sports broadcasting can relate, albeit on a smaller scale.

When we are contracted to cover major multi-sport events like the Olympics, world championships, world title fights and NBA games on other continents, we have one foot in their time zone and another in the Philippines. For example, during the 1996 Olympics, we were laboring under a 12-hour time difference. We had to be awake while the games were going on, often receiving as many as 16 live event feeds at the International Broadcasting Center in downtown Atlanta. Most sports took place while the Philippines slept. But we still had to be awake to deliver the results and primetime events from there when the country woke up. I would do studio anchoring from 6 a.m. to 12 noon there, which was 6 p.m. to midnight locally. But we still needed to cover events until past midnight (boxing and basketball) at the different venues. We averaged about three hours of fitful sleep each night.

By the second week, the lack of sleep was evident even with television make-up on. And as most of the sleep-deprived do, we tried to juice ourselves up with sugar and caffeine, with coffee and soft drinks as the drugs of choice. Unfortunately, it only provided temporary relief, and we’d crash every time the sugar boost wore off. Those among us who cover the NBA Finals, like my ABS-CBN colleagues Boom Gonzalez and TJ Manotoc, also have additional duties like doing live reports for programs back home and in TJ’s case – preparing edited video packages for TV Patrol, Bandila and ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) programs. Those who cover Manny Pacquiao and Nonito Donaire likewise go through the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the best job in the world, but people underestimate the amount of work it takes to be great at it.

What happens while you sleep? Physically, your body is at rest, so your heart rate slows down, and all your body’s internal secretions balance out. It is conserving energy and repairing itself. It also undoes the impact of walking, running and other physical exertion, which is why your spine relaxes, making you a little taller in the morning. That’s why PBA imports go running when they’re a fraction of an inch over the height limit, in an effort to further compress the spine through the pounding the body takes.

There are also a few of reasons why your eyes need to be shut during this process. First, it takes a lot of your body’s energy to see, which also serves as a stimulus you can’t shut off. But the more important reasons are your brain does all its filing unloading while it is in a restful state. When you are awake, research suggests your brain can be processing hundreds of thousands of bits of information at any given time. The alpha state (where your mind is between consciousness and sleep) has been proven to be the height of your creativity, serving as a conduit between your conscious and subconscious. Many of the world’s most gifted creators, from Steven Spielberg to Mario Puzo, keep notepads beside their beds to jot down ideas they get just before falling asleep.

Most importantly, this is the best time for your mind and body to deal with stress. You can let go of what’s been bothering you, and let your subconscious work on it. Sometimes, we manifest our stress through our dreams, which explains why many people have an experience of being immobile immediately after waking. This phenomenon is an offshoot of a built-in mechanism we have to keep us from acting out our dreams. Otherwise, the consequences could be dangerous, especially if we aren’t sleeping alone. Former Mr. Universe and original TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno accidentally knocked his wife out of bed on more than one occasion while sleeping, restless from being too pumped up for an upcoming competition. Many reality shows on television purposely deprive participants of sleep to put them on edge, make them more emotional and prone to snap decisions. They get cranky, say or do things they normally wouldn’t, and conflicts get ignited. Higher ratings result. Basically, they are induced to live in an altered state of consciousness.