Last night, CBS ran a segment on 60 Minutes called The Science of Sleep.
They covered some of topics that we have previously blogged about such as: Lack of sleep and risk of cardiovascular disease, Sleep contributing to better memory , and more. Pretty interesting segment – worth a watch!

According to this article in Scientific American, by not getting enough sleep, a child’s risk of being overweight doubles and chances of later depression and anxiety increase. In two separate studies, young children who slept too little, were twice as likely to be overweight by age 3 and reported more anxiety, depressions and aggressive behavior as adults.

According to this article in Bangkok Post, just a few minutes of sleep can improve your memory and mental performance. Dr. Olaf Lahl at the University of Dusseldorf (Germany) conducted an experiment in which volunteers were asked to remember a list of 30 words. Then, the volunteers played solitaire for one hour. During the one hour period, some of the volunteers were allowed to take a 6 minute nap, while others were asked to stay awake. The experiment found that subjects who took a brief nap displayed “superior recall” when compared to subjects that stayed awake.