Sleep zombies are on the rise as hundreds of thousands are struggling to get correct shuteye
Britain is at risk of becoming a nation of sleep zombies as millions are struggling to get a proper night’s kip.
The country is feared to be in the grips of a sleeping crisis as four in 10 people who were surveyed admit they can’t get any decent shuteye. Nearly one in five say they never wake up feeling like they’re properly rested.
And experts say it could have a serious impact on public health, leaving millions at risk of heart disease, stroke and depression. They have described it as one of the “defining health challenges” of modern life.
Brits could become a nation of groggy zombies due to lack of sleep (Stock)
There’s also a gender ‘sleep gap’ as women are 38% more likely to suffer from poor sleep than blokes, the research by the nutrition brand Nourished found. Women are also “far more likely” to say stress and anxiety is affecting the quality of the naps they get, with 44% citing it as a “barrier”, its report said.
The firm’s CEO Melissa Snover explained why the lack of sleep can leave Brits feeling like the walking dead. She said: “Sleep has become one of the defining health challenges of modern life. Deep sleep is the body’s major physical repair and recovery phase. It’s when processes involved in muscle and tissue repair, immune function, growth hormone release, metabolism and physical recovery take place.”
She said having a proper snooze is also vital for your brain, especially during the REM – rapid eye movement – part of sleep which is when the most vivid dreams happen. The nutritionist said: “REM sleep, meanwhile, is enormously important for the brain. It plays a key role in memory consolidation, learning, emotional processing and cognitive performance.”
Getting a good night sleep isn’t just down to how long you are in bed for – but also the quality of your sleep
A person’s sleep “architecture” and “quality” is also important to ensure people feel refreshed in the morning – not just the amount of hours Brits get in bed, she added.
She said: “So good sleep isn’t only about whether you feel physically refreshed in the morning – it can influence how clearly you think, concentrate, learn and function the following day.
“That’s why eight hours in bed doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve had eight hours of good sleep. Sleep quality and sleep architecture matter just as much as the numbers on the clock.”
Boffins at Nourished are attempting to combat this sleep crisis using its new sleep support gummy named PeptiSleep they developed with the help of AI. They say they have used AI to discover new natural bioactives and study them to use them in products.
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