At the risk of sounding like America’s mom, you have got to get a good night’s sleep.

This is a health issue of no small consequence. Sleep quality is important to health in too many ways to list here .

The right answer to sleep problems is not, “It’s just stress.” There is no “just” in stress. It is a symptom, not a root cause.

This study says most Americans actually know that they need more sleep.

The question is, why are we a nation of sleep-deprived people?

Forty years ago, we did not have 10,000 cable stations, cell phones and laptops—offering us a “rich media” life. That is great in many ways but it may not be great if, by Crackberrying messages right up until you turn off the light, you toss and turn.

The workplace and life in general was much more structured four decades ago.

Structure, routine, supports the get to sleep process.

U. S. News and World Report/Health Day News

“Americans of all races toss and turn in bed each night, and sleeplessness is affecting their jobs, social lives and even their sexual habits, the latest poll on U. S. sleep habits finds.

“Everybody is sleeping less; we do live in a nation of sleepy people,” said Dr. Jose Loredo, a professor of medicine and director of the Sleep Medicine Center at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of the committee that conducted the National Sleep Foundation poll, titled 2010 Sleep in America.

“The survey of 1,007 adults across the country found that people sleep almost two hours less than they did 40 years ago. “You need about 8.5 hours of sleep a night,” he added.

“Sleep duration is a very important variable in health, especially cardiovascular health,” Loredo said. “There is a strong association of sleeping less and hypertension, sleeping less and heart attacks, sleeping less and obesity,” he said.

Source: U. S. News and World Report/Health Day News, March 8, 2010

Source: National Sleep Foundation Poll, Sleep in America.