Getting enough sleep at night doesn’t always mean that you’re set for the day.
A new study conducted at Pennsylvania State College of Medicine suggests that the common underlying causes of excessive daytime sleepiness include obesity and depression, according to the website Pyschcentral.
“In the medical field, there is a widespread belief that if you feel sleepy during the day, it’s because you didn’t get enough sleep,” stated Julio Fernandez-Mendoza, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Sleep Research and Treatment Center at Pennsylvania State College of Medicine.
“We need to start abandoning this idea. If we continue to believe that the only cause of excessive daytime sleepiness is people sleeping too little, we are missing the vast majority of the population.”
Excessive daytime sleepiness is defined as the inability to stay alert during the day due to drowsiness, according to Yahoo Health. Studies reportedly estimate that the condition affects between 11 to 25 percent of the population.
For the recent study, 1,300 participants reportedly spent a night being observed in a sleep lab, then underwent a physical exam and filled out surveys on their sleep habits and well-being.
After about 7.5 years, researchers reportedly followed up with telephone interviews to analyze the participants’ health and sleep.
“The main causes of a sleepy society are an obese society, a depressed society and, to some extent, people who have a psychological disorder. By looking at our patients more closely, we can start personalizing sleep medicine,” explained Fernandez-Mendoza.
The recent findings also reportedly showed that a minority of people with excessive daytime sleepiness have a psychological sleepiness disorder of the central nervous system. This group of people reportedly sleep longer than average at night.
“Excessive daytimes sleepiness has huge implications for public health and policy,” Fernandez-Mendoza stated.
“Fatigue and sleepiness are the most common causes of poor work productivity and fatal car crashes. In our study, we were able to causally link obesity and depression — disorders of epidemic proportions — with daytime sleepiness through different mechanisms; in fact, we found that individuals who lost weight did not complain of daytime sleepiness anymore.”
