Are you one of those people who look forward to sleeping in on the weekends, knowing that you’ll finally get that precious feeling of having gotten enough rest that day?...

It’s one of the first questions that Marc Diamond, MD, a pulmonologist at Temple Lung Center at Chestnut Hill Hospital who has special training in critical care medicine and sleep medicine, asks all his new patients. If they tell him that weekends are the only times they get out of bed feeling they’ve gotten their full complement of sleep, right away he knows there’s a problem. 

“That is a behavior that is really indicative of sleep deprivation,” Diamond says. “If you’re getting enough sleep during the week, you will not change your bed and rise time during the weekend.”

Weekend sleepers are just part of what Diamond describes as a growing -- and serious -- health problem. According to some recent studies, nearly half of Americans are sleep deprived, which Diamond says adds up to a serious health issue. Our brains need sleep to focus, learn, and remember the new things we learn. And sleep doesn’t just protect our mental health, he said. It also supports our physical health – with every system of the body being affected, from our circulatory to our immune systems. 

“Most people aren’t aware of just how sleep deprived they are,” Diamond said. 

Diamond sees sleep deprivation in many forms in his patients. Some have sleep apnea, a pathological disorder that causes breathing to stop during sleep, resulting in poor sleep and ensuing sleepiness during the day. Other patients are firefighters and overnight hospital workers who are sleep deprived as a result of having inconsistent sleep schedules that counteract the body’s circadian rhythm, known as shift work disorder. Or, parents report to Diamond that their teenagers stay up too late and have trouble waking, a sleep deprivation known as phase delay disorder.

Whatever the cause, sleep deprivation is problematic. Aside from the obvious drowsiness it causes, it also reduces some cognitive function, and is associated with an increased risk for serious conditions such as diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack and stroke.

Worse, problems caused by lack of sleep add up. Recent studies show that people who sleep 4-6 hours a night for a week straight experience the same performance issues as people who won’t sleep for two days straight. “There is a cumulative effect of sleep deprivation that can be just as detrimental as staying up all night in a cram session,” says Diamond.

According to the National Institutes of Health, adults over the age of 18 should get seven to eight hours of sleep each night, while teenagers need up to 10 hours. But that’s not at all what we’re getting. According to Diamond, the average American now sleeps less than seven hours a night – two and a half hours less than the average 9.5 hours they got 100 years ago. 

Diamond chalks it up to the many ways our lifestyles have changed since then. Staying up late with lights and computer screens on is almost a fact of modern life, for instance, as is the 24/7 pace of a typical work day. 

“As a sleep doctor, sleep deprivation is one of the most challenging things to address,” says Diamond. “Most people are not willing to sacrifice hobbies, jobs, time with family for sleep. Sleep is what gets cut into and gets sacrificed first.”

For sleep deprivation caused by lifestyle factors, behavioral changes are key.

Diamond recommends keeping a sleep diary and implementing better sleep hygiene -- fixed bedtimes and rise times, avoiding late night activities like eating, and preserving the bed for only sleep and intimacy.

Doctors may also recommend a blue light in the morning to boost alertness, and melatonin, a self-made protein that syncs a patient’s circadian rhythm with the day-night cycle, may be prescribed to help signal sleep. 

“If people aren't willing to do the behavioral things in addition to the medicine, I would say the medicines are not very effective,” says Diamond. “If you’re going to bed at 2 a.m., popping 10 melatonin isn’t going to do much.”

Overnight studies can be useful to diagnose and treat complicated apnea, seizures, REM behavior disorder, and narcolepsy -- all of which can be diagnosed at the in-patient Sleep Lab at Chestnut Hill Hospital, a full service sleep center for patients with all kinds of sleep disorders. In the lab, a patient is observed as they sleep, and hooked up to equipment that monitors brain waves, heart and breathing activity. 

Not all patients need an in-lab sleep study. According to Diamond, the field of sleep medicine has increasingly moved toward at-home sleep tests over the last 10-15 years. These were developed in response to the long wait times for in-lab sleep study appointments and the resulting delays in getting people care. At-home tests monitor breathing and oxygen, and are used to diagnose sleep apnea. 

“A home study is perfectly fine, because you are just asking, is sleep apnea present, yes or no, and you can get that answer,” says Diamond.

Patient testimonials for Diamond demonstrate the efficiency of the at-home sleep test in diagnosing sleep apnea, including one patient, who asked to remain anonymous, who received a sleep apnea diagnosis and a prescription for a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine within a week of picking up the at-home sleep test. The patient, who’s seen vast improvements in the two years since receiving treatment, says the CPAP uses “air like a stent, pushing air in to keep the airway open while you sleep.” 

To learn more about sleep, attend a free, virtual lecture on May 11 at noon. Diamond will discuss sleep disorders in older adults and the impact of sleep medications and sleep deprivation symptoms, as well as sleep remedies for a better night’s sleep. 

Register for the lecture at CHWellnessEvents.com.