Dr. John B. Coll is no stranger to snoring, sleep apnea and sleepy teenagers. He sees sleep deprived people every day at CNMRI in Dover, where he practices neurology. He answered a few common questions for us in recognition of National Sleep Awareness Week, which runs from Sunday, March 7, to Saturday, March 13. CNMRI also will be taking questions at its open house from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 10.
Q How do we know how much sleep is enough?
A I think you know when, No. 1, you don’t have to rely on an alarm clock to wake up. And secondly, you don’t find yourself making up for it on your weekends and sleeping significantly longer. If you’re not sleep deprived, you should get roughly the same amount of sleep every day.
Q What can lack of sleep result in?
A Lack of sleep has a lot of effects. It has cognitive effects especially, and your ability to multitask is limited. The other major thing is you get irritable, you lose your temper more, so your personal relationships can suffer as well. You’re just not functioning at the top of your game.
A lot of people are significantly sleep deprived. They have to work, they have kids, they’re busy. I try to explain that if you can make sleep a priority, you function better and I think you get more done in a shorter period of time. When you’re deprived, it takes you longer to do everything. I think you could make up for that if you sleep more.
Q What’s the difference between common snoring and sleep apnea?
A You can tell from interviewing people. Generally people who have sleep apnea have more daytime effects, more complaints of sleepiness and fatigue through the day. But to know for sure you have to get a test. We do an overnight sleep test where we monitor breathing patterns, heart rate, breathing levels and your brain activity. That gives us a lot of information about how badly it is disturbing your sleep. Often we do not see as much stage 3 and REM sleep that you need to be refreshed and alert the following day.
Q How effective is napping in making up for lost sleep?
A I think napping can be a good strategy, but the biggest caveat is keeping the nap short.
Once you let yourself get past 10 to 20 minutes, you start to get into some deeper sleep stages and you might find it harder to wake up. Plus, it might take away from sleep you need at night. With long naps people develop sleep inertia, which is you’re groggy and not functioning well when you wake up.
