Study: Waking Up Like Being Drunk

Ant writes "CNN reports that "sleep inertia" leaves some people so groggy, after they wake up, they might as well be drunk, researchers said on Tuesday. "For a short period, at least, the effects of sleep inertia may be as bad as or worse than being legally drunk," said researcher Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado at Boulder."

Comments

Its just like...

[Saggi]

Its just like sitting and waiting for a new post on slashdot, and then quickly trying to write something usefull, witch actually ends up rather stupid.

According to this research we should not allow post for at least 3 min after a new entry on slashdot.

I think this entry proves my point.

theolein reports on Common Sense

[theolein]

It may come as a great shock to these scientists to realise that most people on the planet take awhile to get fully awake after waking up. Those same people would refer to that knowledge as common sense.

Re:theolein reports on Common Sense

[kfg]

. . .do you have scientific evidence that common sense exists?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that it does not. I shall apply for a grant to conduct a rigorous test of the hypothesis. If I get it. . .

Q.E.D.

KFG

MIT natural alarm clock

[moonbender]

There was a story about some sleep researchers from MIT having developed an alarm clock that monitors your sleep and wakes you up at a time when you're most likely to be well rested (outside a REM phase or whatever). Of course that meant you couldn't enter the exact time to wake up, just an approximate. I still thought this sounded awesome, and they were going to commercialise it, but even if they did I guess it's really expensive and also, sleeping with sensors attached is bound to be annoying.

Re:MIT natural alarm clock

[Red Alastor]

There was a story about some sleep researchers from MIT having developed an alarm clock that monitors your sleep and wakes you up at a time when you're most likely to be well rested (outside a REM phase or whatever).

No need for sensors or anything complicated. Use two alarm clocks, set one at the earliest time you want to make. Set it on radio and set the sound fairly low. Set the second at the maximum time you want to wake but put it on alarm at maximum volume.

When you'll be ready to wake up, the low sound will wake you up. If it doesn't happen, the second will wake you. It might take a few shots to figure out how low/loud you must set the first alarm.

Re:Legally drunk?

[Fruny]

It's not "legally" vs. "illegally", but, say, "legally" vs. "medically".

Easy to scoff

[SimianOverlord]

If you had gone to a hospital bureaucrat and argued against shift patterns for junior doctors requiring them to nap during the night when no patients were around, and they asked you for evidence, what then do you do? Say that they would be sleepy? That it was common sense that they couldn't do their job safely?

I suspect you'd be dismissed because people don't make important decisions like that based on what Joe Schmoe reckons is 'obvious'. That's why things that, on the face of them seem obvious, must be checked out scientifically. There has to be evidence to base decisions on, as gut feelings and common sense are, in many cases, completely and flagrantly wrong.

You demand those new conditions for junior doctors, and you're suddenly paying them millions of pounds more countrywide. I wouldn't stake millions of pounds on someones common sense without something more to back it up.