Study: Too much computer gaming leads to less sleep

LOS ANGELES, June 8 (Xinhua) -- People addicted to computer gaming sleep less and have difficulty in staying awake the next day, a new study has found.

People addicted to computer gaming sleep less and have difficulty in staying awake the next day, a new study has found.(File photo)

Excessive gamers get too little sleep at night, then spend their days struggling to stay awake, but many of them aren't aware of the link between the two, according to the study by researchers at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock.

College students, who play video games more than seven hours a week and consider themselves addicted, sleep almost two hours less a night than occasional or non-gamers, said the study presented on Monday at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting in Seattle.

Of the 137 students examined by the study, nearly 11 percent said gaming interfered with their sleep, and 12.6 percent said they were addicted to gaming.

Data from pediatricians on nearly 15,500 patients, ranging in age from infancy to 18 years old, showed that fewer than four percent were diagnosed with a sleep problem. The most common diagnoses were sleep disorders that were "not otherwise specified"(1.42 percent), bedwetting (1.24 percent), sleep disordered breathing (1.04 percent) and insomnia (0.05 percent), according to the study.

A concern is that people who are sleep-deprived don't function optimally in the daytime, said the study.

"It surprised us, however, that of the people who admitted being addicted to gaming, only about a third of them recognized an interference with their sleep," said researcher Amanda Woolems Woolems who led the study.

Other health-care professionals weren't surprised by the study's findings.

"These findings are not unexpected," said sleep expert Dr. Alexandre Rocha Abreu, an assistant professor in the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida, who was not involved in the study.

It's not just the excitement of gaming that keeps folks wired. Another factor in sleep loss is the environment. "These people tend to be in a room where there is a lot of indirect light from the TV and the screen on the computer. The computer screen tends to simulate sunlight, so even at night you can delay your sleep phase," Abreu said in remarks published by Health Day News.

Also, because of different time zones, it's possible to play computer games around the clock. "You can be playing games 24/7 with different people from different countries. These people tend to sleep less," he said.