I write about sleep health for a living, yet I probably haven’t had a decent stint of quality sleep in over a decade. The fog of becoming a new parent has seamlessly melted into the perimenopause years. Now, nights punctuated by nighttime anxiety means I regularly clock just 5-6.5 hours of sleep a night.
That falls far short of the 7-9 hours of sleep recommended by experts, placing me firmly in the long term sleep deprivation category. As a sleep editor who interviews leading experts and doctors, the side effects of chronic sleep deprivation are familiar to me — and they’re genuinely frightening.
