Americans are facing a sleep debt of epidemic proportions, and the nation’s leading doctor is taking notice. At last week’s Washington Ideas Festival, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy stressed the importance of healthy, restorative sleep to preventative medicine.
Dr. Murthy, an internist, reflected on how unhealthy sleep took a toll on his own life as a physician:
As all of us know health is deeply intertwined with culture: what we eat, how active we are, how much we sleep. These are rooted in cultural norms. When I was training in medicine for example, there was a culture in medicine that strong people didn’t need sleep, that the less you slept, the more you just powered through a tough call night on no sleep, the stronger you were. That is not helpful to have a culture that supports unhealthy practices like that.
As sleep medicine awareness grows in Washington, it is important that sleep specialists are leading the discussion. As the Surgeon General and Congress take notice of the nation’s need to sleep, are you prepared to be a sleep advocate?
Join the fight against sleep disease both inside and outside your center! Visit the new advocacy resources brought to you through Evolve Sleep and make a contribution to the AASM PAC today.
Forward to the 6:05 mark of the video below to watch the discussion about sleep:
