Snews Alert Online

ASLEEP at Work

It's 11:00p.m. Monday Night, The Football Game Has Just Gone Into Overtime. You Are Faced With A Decision--Stay Up To Watch The End OF The Game And Catch The News For The Weather, Or Go To Bed So You Can Get At Least 7 Hours Of Sleep And Be Maximally Alert And Productive For Your 8:00a.m. Meeting.

When we have to choose between staying up late to finish one day or going to bed to rest for the next, all to often we opt to ignore our body's need for sleep in favor of extending our time awake. And, inevitably, the result comes the next morning when the sound of the alarm blares incessantly at 6a.m. and your body just isn't ready to wake up.

With very few exceptions, the average adult needs between 7 and 8 hours of sleep within each 24-hour period to be adequately alert for the other 16 to 17 hours awake. Without the proper amount of sleep, the body cannot and will not function to its potential. Poor job performance, nodding off in meetings and extreme irritably that makes you snap at co-workers can be the result of not getting the proper amount of quality sleep.

With increased societal demands, total sleep time has decreased while time spent working has increased. Over the past century, the total sleep time for adults has decreased by 20%, though our body's sleep need remains the same. Since 1969, each person of working age has added an average of 150 hours per year to work, just in time spent commuting. We are a sleep deprived society at high risk for fatigue-related accidents.

Sleepiness on the job is a major problem and not just for industrial jobs. Any person in any position who is responsible for making decisions suffers without sufficient sleep. A study published in the Journal Sleep estimated 52.5% of all work-related accidents potentially may be related to sleepiness. Of course, sleepiness can be very dangerous, but more than that, is also quite costly. Work place accidents add up! Accidents caused by fatigue in the work place cost companies in America over $80 billion annually. Then there are the catastrophes. After all the investigations were complete, these disasters were attributed to fatigue; the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Chernobyl power plant explosion, the Challenger explosion, Three-mile Island and Bhopal. With the rapid increase in technological capability, it is not our machines that fail us, it is the operator. Human errors are the primary cause of 90% of all accidents.

One night of disrupted sleep probably will not result in huge catastrophes, but most people do not have just one night of disrupted sleep, night after night they try to get by on less sleep than their bodies actually need. Sleepiness builds into a sleep debt as the effects of inadequate sleep are cumulative! For example, assuming an adult needs eight hours of sleep each night but only gets seven. By the end of a week there is a seven hour sleep debt, which is the equivalent of going one full 24-hour period without the proper amount of sleep--in college this is called "an all nighter." Now let's figure the sleep debt for an individual who only gets 6 hours of sleep each night (which seems to be more accurate for most Americans), at the end of the week, that sleep debt is 14 hours--or 2 "all-nighters." Here are just a few effects of sleep deprivation:

	Daytime drowsiness and microsleeps
	Mood shifts, including depression, increased irritability
	Stress, anxiety and loss of sense of humor
	Lack of desire to socialize
	Reduced immunity to disease and viral infection
	Reduced productivity and ability to remember
	Reduced ability to handle complex tasks
	Reduced ability to think logically
	Reduced ability to analyze new information
	Reduced ability to think critically
	Reduced decision-making skills and vocabulary
	Reduced motor skills and coordination

If any of the impairments on this list sound like a day in your life, you need to allow yourself to get more sleep. Think of an extra hour at night as an investment in your QUALITY of life because that's exactly what it is. If you find yourself with a sleep debt, you CAN make it up. You can get more sleep. To increase productivity, job performance, mood and basic quality of life, you should try to get 8 hours of sleep a night. Start with an extra 15 minutes of sleep each night for at least a couple of weeks. Notice how you feel and appreciate what it actually feels like to be awake.