Learn about conventional, complementary, and integrative therapies.
Dealing with treatment side effects? Learn about evidence-based therapies to alleviate your symptoms.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more.
Hospital sleep stinks. That is to say, trying to get a decent night’s sleep is almost impossible in most hospitals. Ironically, sleep is central to the body’s ability to heal. As is nutrition and exercise.
The article linked and excerpted below is near and dear to my own medical history. I spent 21 days in the hospital undergoing an autologous stem cell procedure.
Everything, every reason mentioned in the article about sleep interruptions (hospital sleep stinks!) applied to my own hospital stay in December of 1995. I have added lousy food and lack of even moderate exercise because research documents the importance of each to human healing.
Why is sleep so important to human beings? Why does is matter that hospital sleep stinks anyway?
PeopleBeatingCancer’s goal, about blogging anyway, is to document a problem for cancer patients, survivors and caregivers, and then offer possible therapies or fixes in this case. And let’s be honest, if you are about to spend time in a hospital, a good night’s sleep is probably the last thing you are thinking about.
If you are about to enter the hospital, assume that hospital sleep stinks and that you must take steps to get a decent amount of sleep each night. Consider:
As always, check with your doctor. Who knows? Maybe CBD oil interferes with a medication you are taking?
Are you a newly diagnosed cancer patient? Are you about to spend some time in a hospital? Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com
Good luck,
David Emerson
Sleep in the hospital is poor. A meta-analysis from 2022 that examined 203 studies showed that the average total sleep time for hospitalized patients varies significantly between age groups. Children and adolescents sleep an average of about 7.8 hours per night, while adults and older adults manage to sleep only 5.6 and 5.8 hours, respectively.
A substantial majority of studies, approximately 76% of those examined, reported sleep duration below the average considered healthy. Almost half of the studies indicated that adults slept less than 6 hours per night: A threshold commonly associated with adverse health outcomes. Furthermore, patients frequently experience numerous nocturnal awakenings (up to 42 times per night) and prolonged awakenings after sleep onset of over 105 minutes…
The primary reason that patients in the hospital do not sleep is because they are unwell. Pain or medication effects often reduce sleep quality and quantity. Psychological stress resulting from anxiety about health problems, the unfamiliar hospital environment, disruption of routine, or reduced personal autonomy also significantly contributes to sleep degradation…
Not surprisingly, several studies have shown a correlation between the number of sound peaks in a hospital setting and the number of patient awakenings during sleep. One of these studies attributed 20% of sleep awakenings to noise level peaks, while another indicated that environmental noise caused 11.5% of interruptions and 17% of awakenings. The average noise level in hospitals could also play a crucial role…