Waking up the youth: Sleep is essential for health

Letter to editor: Waking Up The Youth: Sleep Is Essential For Health According to the World Sleep Society, sleep, like good food and exercise, is a behavior essential to physical, mental and social well-being. Adequate sleep at appropriate time is necessary for optimal health and safety, while changes in sleep time and duration are intertwined with a variety of metabolic, cardiovascular, endocrine, and neurological disorders1,2.Therefore,sleep, which is directly related to health and quality of life, is considered a basic human need to maintain his/ her bio-psycho-social and cultural functions3. The timing and duration of sleep for each individual is influenced by multifarious factors, namely personal factors (smartphone use, work hours, and length of previous sleep and wakefulness), environmental factors (light-dark cycles), and circadian (his/her own internal biological timing) factors2. Sleep disorders reduce the quality of life and, as a result, pose a slew of health issues. The disease burden for sleep disorders is enormous among Indian population. They have been considered thecinderella branch of medicine for decades4. India being a developing nation, and the Indian youth, who account for approximately 62% of the population, play an important role in the nation's and, to a lesser extent, the world's progress through their hard work and innovation. It is worth noting that the health of today's youth has recently deteriorated as a result of compromised modern lifestyle habits such as altered diet and sleep. Health and nutrition awareness programs have thrived in recent years, but sleep health remains implicit at optimal levels, particularly with regards to youth5. To collect feedback on sleep health, a cohort of 150 college students completed a survey. Feedback was collected using the Google Forms survey questionnaire. The survey questions were comprehensive and collected from various websites of organizations and published articles that emphasizesleep health. Once the survey responses were collected, the investigator analyzed and interpreted the data to gain insights into the student cohort's sleep patterns and attitudes.The studyresults revealed that over 62.2% of youths sleep less than 8 hours per night, with 37.4% sleeping less than 6 hours, 67.9% having trouble sleeping, 75.6% reporting study activities during bedtime, and 60.3% sleeping during the day. The reason for the decreased and altered sleep pattern was that 79.4% of them use mobile phones and 16% watch television (TV) during bed time. It’s high time to educate young people about sleep hygiene and its impact on health and well-being.