Nearly half of Canadians have sleep disorders

Thursday, 29 September 2011 16:00

Disrupted sleep patterns have been strongly linked to anxiety, as it has been shown that workplace stress can keep people up at night and a lack of rest may make individuals less able to cope with relatively minor problems.

As a result of the chronic health and productivity issues that sleep disorders can cause, a team of researchers at Universite Laval in Canada conducted a study to determine the prevalence of these conditions in the country.

In a sample cohort of 2,000 volunteers, the team of scientists found that roughly 40 percent of the population experiences a symptom of insomnia about three times weekly. Signs of the sleep disorder include taking more than a half hour to fall asleep, waking for longer than 30 minutes at a time during the night or rousing from sleep earlier than planned.

Additionally, 20 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with their quality of sleep, and about 13 percent showed signs of clinical insomnia. Perhaps worryingly, just 13 percent of individuals who experienced at least one symptom of the sleep disorder sought treatment from a healthcare professional.