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One in Ten Americans Are Chronically Sleep Deprived
WirePosted writes "A CDC research study released this past week indicates that the physical and mental health of many Americans is being adversely affected by a lack of sleep. According to the study, a part of the organization's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, one in ten US citizens are consistently failing to get enough sleep every night. Almost 40% of the people surveyed didn't get enough sleep for more than a week every month. The article notes that this trend can have far-ranging implications for health beyond simple fatigue."
Oh, the delicious amusement that struck me at seeing this article about sleep deprivation appear at 3:30AM (Pacific time zone, United States).
In all seriousness, despite being a major geek (I'm posted to slashdot at 3am on a Sunday, that should be geek-cred enough!), I decided to get rid of my HDTV (and in fact, stop watching TV alltogether) as an experiment. Although I miss The Daily Show, Colbert, and a few others, I've found I actually prefer not having it.. and as a rather shocking side effect, I actually keep better hours now. Suddenly I realized that the insomnia I've had since I was 13 or so, is at least in large part, related to certain stimuli. TV being one of them. As you can probably tell by the fact that I'm awake at 3:30AM on a Sunday, the Internet is an even bigger culprit.. and I'm in the process of working out how I can dial back its hold on me.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
People not getting to bed early enough; film at 11.
...to borrow the 'obvious' tag from FARK.com
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
I find my sleep schedule rather varied, to say the least. For instance, I'm planning on going to sleep after I post this comment (3:43 PST) and waking up at 10:20 PST, for a bit under 7 hours of sleep. However, since my first class is significantly earlier on Tuesday than on Monday, I'll be getting much less sleep tomorrow night, even though I'll probably get to bed earlier. Having variable wake-up times makes holding a regular sleep schedule far more difficult.
And then there are the glorious weekends when I sleep from 5 AM to 3 PM. 10 hours of sleep when most people in the "real world" are awake can be fun.
I for one welcome our... *blink* our sleep-depri... *yawn* sleep-deprived overl... *bigyawn* overlor... *snore*
Sucks not being able to fall asleep when you want to.
...you insensitive clod!
Now I'm going to be up all night worrying about if I get enough sleep or not.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
You mean some people get 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night? I guess we are turning into a country of slackers.
Oh no no no not at all. Of course I'm not sleep depriveeeeeeeeeeedwrteryrtyuyiio890789
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
150 channels, billions of internet pages, consoles, text messages, MMOs. Gone are the days when there was nothing to watch at 11:00 but the local news, leaving sex and reading (both good for sleep) as one's final options for the night. TFA mentions shift work, which seems rather off the mark, as much "shift work" went overseas to China with our industrial base.
.)
Our sleep deprivation, I would hazard to guess, is mostly voluntary (or semi-voluntary.) And overall it's not such a bad thing -- our time is short, and who can blame us for resenting the hours lost to sleep?
(And it's 5:00 a.m. and I really wish I could sleep. Stupid new Wii and its evil bowling . . .
Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog . . .
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I'd pay some dam't good money for some normal sleep
Obviously I goddamn up -
And that's after taken sleeping pil - LUNESTA,"anti-anxuety" meds, muscle rexaler, narcotics for chronic pain & a small "smoke' before bed. (wonder why anon post)
And that gets me only about 2 hrs sleep at a time -
ARRGH !
1 in 5 Americans visit slashdot.
Joking aside, workaholism leads to lack of sleep which may lead to chronic fatigue and depression.
Perhaps that is part of the reason why we americans do not rate very highly on the global happiness scale.
Think about it.
...but my warlock alt needs to be level 70 in time for the next arena season! And then I need gear...and practice... and to level up tailoring. And I never did finish levelling cooking on my warrior. oh dear oh dear.
Machine9dotNet
/me looks at watch. Realizes he just spent the last 15 hours straight working on one assignment... may get an hour's sleep if he's lucky.
Yup. I'd believe it...
- The Twenty-Four Hour Society: Understanding Human Limits in a World That Never Sleeps by Martin Moore-Ede
He's also written several other books having to do with sleep and circadian rhythm.Among the anecdotes in the book are an account of a coast-to-coast airplane crew who put the plane on autopilot then all fell asleep. The plane, loaded with passengers, overshot the destination and was a hundred miles out to sea before air traffic control was able to wake them over the radio.
Also, the author was paid a visit by a Secret Service agent - the people who guard the life of the US President. It seems they were expected to stay on the same shift, in local time, no matter where in the world the President went. That is, if they work 9 to 5 Washington time, then fly to Iraq, say - where the president has visited a couple times - they are expected to then work 9 to 5 Iraqi time, without taking any time to get used to the time zone change. The agent who consulted the author felt that their constant exhaustion that resulted put the President's life at risk.
My own experience includes, at my very first salaried programming job, where I wasn't paid very much and didn't get overtime pay, I was regularly expected to work twenty-hour days and once worked a twenty-nine hour day.
When I was self-employed as a software consultant, quite often I'd work twenty hour days trying to make a milestone so I could get paid. Several times, when times were really hard, I worked forty-hour "days".
Employers of salaried employees seem to feel quite justified in requiring their employees to work without enough sleep. I'd like to see legislation passed that forbids this. Even if your paid work isn't safety-critical, going without sleep needlessly puts lives at risk when you drive your car home. People are killed all the time when drivers fall asleep at the wheel.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I for one welcome ourselves...
6 hours a night? 2 nights in a row of that I'm completely useless at work the next day and most likely have a bad headache all day. How do people cope?
I considered getting rid of my TV because I was staying up late watching the late night shows after a few solid hours of prime time TV watching...but technology saved me.
I bought a DVR for my computer and recorded shows onto my computer and put them on my mp3 player to watch while commuting and at work when I was bored. Time shifting shows allows me to get the sleep I need.
I think those one in ten Americans are all in the military.
Join the military, see the world. Because you'll never sleep again.
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
Wow, way to turn an article about sleep deprivation into a political diatribe. First of all, neither I nor any of my coworkers kill anyone. We are intelligence analysts, providing strategic guidance to GEN Petraeus. Second, I resent the implication that killing people leads to damaging a person mentally. Just because you disaprove of it doesn't mean it's on par with brain damage to those who choose to serve our country. Third, you obviously have NO concept of what is going in here so try to keep your uninformed opinions to yourself in the future.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
They suggest that 7 hours is the minimum in TFA, and I get 5.5 hours on weekdays if I'm lucky. If I tried to move up to the minimum of seven that they recommend, I'd have to face a packed to the gunwales train here in Japan. Indeed, surveys show that almost half of all Japanese get less than six hours shut-eye per night, but if you add back in snoozing on the train (or at meetings, a not uncommon sight) perhaps they manage to break the seven hour barrier?
this has the same ring to it as 75% of Americans being chronically dehydrated
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
It's actually meant as a tool to tie down users or children, but maybe using a proxy with a time-based ruleset can server as a 'hint. You can even instruct it to only block slashdot.org between midnight and 7am.
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
... month long vacations like in some european countries.
And to think how the dollar is falling against the euro.... go figure...
I don't think he was referring to it, but by mental damage someone else could have been referring to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Actually, I think there's a pretty good case to be made that killing people does lead to mental damage.
Anyway, keep your head down and come back safe, oodaloop. With luck, after next January, you may be able to come home for good.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Go to bed at 10PM, asleep almost immediately. Often wake up before the alarm goes off at 6AM. Alarm is set to a local PBS station (WETA), so I wake up to classical music rather than a loud screech.
Best Slashdot Co
I've *made* employees go home and sleep during busy projects. Not only don't I want to risk their health, but why would I want half asleep zombies working for me? Balancing personal and professional life can be delicate these days, but a good manager knows how to keep his people productive and as happy as possible.
I agree that there needs to be something done. I am loathe to have the Government get involved in our lives anymore than they already are, but you may be right that there needs to be some kind of regulation as to how long you can work an employee, be they salaried or not.
As Americans don't even rate in the Top Ten Worldwide for frequency, according to the folks at Durex (and they should know!).
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
And damned if you don't. I was just reading about a new study that found people who slept more than 6 or 7 hours a night were likely to die younger. I believe it was a BBC story, but I'm having trouble digging it up on google. Here are a couple of older studies though.
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/C/20025782.html
http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2002/02_08_Kripke.html
I have trouble sleeping more than 7 hours. During the week I get 6 hours a night on average. I spent several years in the navy getting 4 or less but I functioned well and survived.
Go to sleep when you're tired. Get up when you wake up. That's probably the amount your body needs.
Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
hang on, something feels wrong.. eh, pepsi time
... you insensitive clod!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Staying awake with the kids is my number one issue....basically I have to stay awake longer than them and basically get up with them.
Of course there are activities that I want to do that I can't when the kids are awake...so I end up staying awake longer just to do them....heck...last night I stayed up to watch the first volume of Death Note on DVD. I can't exactly let my 7 or 4 year olds see something that is rated for >=14yr olds.
Wash, rise, repeat....= lack of sleep.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Hehe, that would get me fired since I'm supposed to start at 7:00. But wait ! That would give me more time to sleep... but nothing to eat.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Try laying off the caffeine and nicotine.
X.
This gets exacerbated if one of your kids is a real early bird (would like to get up at 5:30 am), and the other one is a night owl (goes to sleep at 11 pm, but wakes up at 9 am).
Well, the first solution would be not to screw up your life by having kids... obviously. But the second solution would be to do like most families did when I was a kid (though not mine) and put the kids to bed by about 8pm.
Also, I don't know what Death Note is, but your kids are going to be fine regardless of what they watch. I watched Nightmare on Elmstreet and Poltergeist at four years old and I haven't killed anyone.
*slurp* What are these? What is this "bed" you speak of? What is this "sleep" everyone here keeps talking about? *slurp* And you do this when? At night? *slurp* Shouldn't you guys be doing something productive?
*slurp*
Mmmmmm....coffee!
*slurp*
My blog
In this day and age it seems as if most people exist on six hours a night, with eight being a luxury, and greater than that considered lazy. Unfortunately for me, I have narcolepsy (though fortunately the kind sans cataplexy). Six hours of sleep for me is no more than a tease, and more often I'd be better off just trying to stay up. Eight hours for me is how I'd imagine six hours would feel for someone normal: enough to make you feel as if you had slept, without being refreshing in any meaningful way. My body simply does not function well on less than ten hours sleep. On the weekends I've slept as much as sixteen hours a day (depending how much sleep I got during the weekdays). This would not be so bad if it were not for all the horrible life effects that sleeping as much as this has. I essentially can not have what normal people consider a social life. My wife feels like she hardly sees me. A friend of mine will ask me to go play some pool or something and I never end up going because I get ribbed for being an "old man" for NEEDING to go to bed by 10 or 11 PM on a WEEKEND. Anything greater would throw off my sleep schedule for the following week. I did find some nice medicine that helped GREATLY (only needed the normal 7-8 hours a night like anyone else!) but is unfortunately not covered by my insurance, and is thus out of my financial reach. (As an aside, you think software patents are bad? You should see the harm caused by some pharmacological patents. See that article for some detail). The alternative medication, that is covered, amounts to little more than legal meth which turns me into a zombie who doesn't need his sleep as much, but am otherwise intolerable. So be happy with your 6-8 hours, it could be worse.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Change your life. http://www.saramednick.com/ http://www.amazon.com/Take-Nap-Change-Your-Life/dp/0761142908
They arrived at around 7:30 from Nashville, and Johnson City and we started jamming, and it was awesome. The Grateful Dead in their prime had nothing on us Friday night. (Seriously, well maybe a little bit, but not much).. Just free form music and it was sublime! At this point my mind still had energy reserves.. We went out into space for 4 or 5 hours. I went to bed at 1:20 a.m, and then had to get up at 4:00 am.. The next day (Saturday) was terrible! I cut my finger that morning from not having a clear head, and was a zombie. Just plain physically exhausted and at a bluegrass show we went to I could hardly even play. It was like my brain was in neutral (some would say it always is anyway), my finger hurt more than it should have also. But yep, there was something like a 1000% decrease in my performance from Friday to Saturday, and I feel it was a lack of sleep. After the bluegrass show we switched gears and went to another studio to play with a drummer and an energy drink helped and it was kinda fun, but after that, at around 11:30 Saturday night I crashed hard.. So I just went to bed, but the sleep wasn't productive.
Now it is Monday, and I still feel like a zombie, but somewhat more alert. I think that sleep is much more important than we all give it credit for. Two or three days/nights on 2 or 3 hours of sleep each night are painful to say the least. It was worth it, but a wall outlet or charging unit is needed for my body and mind.
I would consider a clone of me as well. :)
That old saying means a lot more to me in my late 40's than it did in my teens. teens to 20's...2-3am, up around 7:30 to work by 8ish. late 20's to late 30's....midnight to 1am, up around 7ish to work by 8 late 30's to mid 40's....11pm to midnight, up around 7ish to work by 8 Now, in bed 9:30 to 10:30pm, up at 6am to work by 7am. The older you get, it (should be) natural to get more sleep to be able to fully function. Caffine cannot make up for lack of sleep. Your brain and body need a good 7-8 hours of sleep.
Also, I don't know what Death Note is, but your kids are going to be fine regardless of what they watch. I watched Nightmare on Elmstreet and Poltergeist at four years old and I haven't killed anyone....yet.
I routinely get around 5-6 hours of sleep and I have effects never side gotten any!
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
What's wrong with the other nine??
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Anything that stimulates you is bad, you want the brain to be inactive, doing ANYTHING before you go to sleep therefor is bad. If you really want to sleep well do so in a DARK, SILENT room with no stimuli, don't read in bed, don't talk in bed, don't watch tv etc etc. It also helps if the room is a bit colder then you would keep the living room.
I agree with the rest, with 10 or more hours spend on working, several more on chores, who indeed has time to sleep? It is one reason I really miss an old job where I only worked 6 hours and could start early. It left the afternoon free to do all the stuff you have to do like cleaning and shopping, and you could fully enjoy your evening. Looking back I was far better off back then, but offcourse you never know how good you have it till it is gone.
It just doesn't fit in our life-style of non-tiring but time-consuming work to have to switch of for a 1/3 of a day every day. No, catching up on your sleep in the weekend ain't no good either. Intelligent Design? My foot!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's what I do, except I don't watch the late night shows. I just watch the shows I would usually watch in the evening, 8-11 PM, and use my time from 8-11 on stuff that I wouldn't be able to do on the bus.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
but there are so many teach yourself in 24 hour books so i can learn everything but feel a little sleepy. maybe they could make the chapters longer and reduce it to teach yourself in 18 hours so i can get a little sleep.
Only one in ten Americans have children?
I say it's time to just stop. Seriously, let's all pick a day, in the middle of the week, and not work. Take the power back, so to speak. If things break, ignore them. If the boss calls, don't answer. We'll all get some sleep, and pay cash at the bar that evening. Our employers are ruining our lives for a pittance, and somehow think that relentless abuse of the individuals directly responsible for their organizations' engines of revenue is a good thing, and we've been cowed into believing that some kind of retribution would be forthcoming. Well, it's not, as the bulk of IT workers suffering from overwork and sleep deprivation are so critical that they couldn't be fired even if their management so desired.
The summary (and, I assume, the article) talks about far-reaching effects. They're not kidding.
:-)
I have diabetes. Despite my best efforts, my blood glucose control was poor until recently. I knew I needed to eat right; I was doing that pretty well. I knew I needed to exercise; I was doing poorly. I seemed to hit a brick wall every time I tried to fit regular exercise into my routine.
I sort-of knew that I needed to get a good night's sleep. I never did.
A while back, I was so exhausted I actually set aside time to sleep for two nights in a row. I got 11 hours sleep each night. By that third day, something weird was going on. My blood sugar kept dropping low. I had to eat some carbs to bring it up, but my BG readings didn't jump high and stay there like I usually expect when I consume those carbs.
Since then I've found a direct correlation - If I get 10 hours of good sleep (I've always needed more sleep than most people), my BG stays in control. I'm ramping up my exercise and losing weight and if this keeps up, at my next consult with my endo, I'm going to explore going off my meds as an experiment.
And to think - a few months ago, we were discussing how soon the inevitable was going to come to pass and I'd have to start injecting insulin. It's tough to leave the computer untouched and not watch TV every evening when I come home from work. Basically, during the 5-day work week, I just work, commute, and sleep. But I can live with that. In fact, I'm living a lot better with that. I use my Tivo to catch up during the weekends and my computer does pre-scheduled runs at usenet all day during the off-peak, unmetered access times specified by my usenet provider. I just process all that stuff on Saturdays. And I post to Slashdot from work.
Moral? Life is better when you sleep. It may even turn out to be a hell of a lot longer, too.
There seems to be a non-trivial correlation between lack of sleep and overweight.
I think I read first about this sometime around the late 90's or early 2000's, and it seems logical: when you're overtired, your body reacts much as it does to starvation - increasing your appetite AND squirreling away calories (as fat) for the anticipated energy shortage.
Experimenting as much as my job & family will allow, I find that if I get sufficient sleep - go to sleep when I'm tired, get up when I wake up, always try to get at LEAST 8 hours (I typically get 5-6 hours)...I've found that I slowly start shedding pounds without significantly changing my eating habits. Not insignificantly, I seem to FEEL better generally (although that of course could be placebo).
But I can never manage that in "real" life for any extended time - hour commute, 9-10 hour work days - so, like most Americans I try to shoehorn in sleep 'when possible' and have to accept that I'll have this tiny 'lack of sleep' headache, and a bit of a gut, forever.
-Styopa
Let me guess, you don't have kids, do you?
;-) I get to work on my computer without my son pestering me to play TuxPaint or the baby whining because I'm not playing with him. My wife gets to knit without worrying about what the kids are up to. We get to watch TV that doesn't involve blue puppies or animated bunnies (Max & Ruby).
Here's my situation. I have a 4 year old and a 9 month old. The 4 year old is great about getting to bed on time (around 7pm) and pretty much stays asleep all night... until about 5:45 am when he wakes up. This is, of course, 15-30 minutes before my alarm goes off on weekdays. Not enough time to go back to sleep, but enough time to feel the lack of enough sleep.
My 9 month old, on the other hand, tends to be ready for some "daddy play time" around 7pm until around 8pm. We get him into his crib and he's good until around 11pm. That's when my wife and I typically go to bed, but that's also when he tends to fuss. He'll spit out his pacifier, then whine about not having it. If we don't get in there quickly, find the pacifier (tough to do in the dark sometimes), and plop it back in his mouth soon enough, he'll go into full cry mode and wake up his big brother (they sleep in the same room). Once he has the pacifier in his mouth, he relaxes and goes back to sleep... until he relaxes so much that the pacifier pops out again. Repeat this until I take him out and rock him (which seems to put him in a deep enough sleep sometimes) or until we take him into our bed.
From 8pm until 11pm is when we get to do "adult" activities. No, not that!
The net effect is that we don't get to sleep until around midnight or later. Then we wake up at 5am. If you mix in a sick child (as our youngest one has been for the past few weeks), then you get even less sleep.
I won't even elaborate on the night (not many weeks ago) when our youngest had a febrile seizure, stopped breathing for awhile, and wound up in the hospital for a few days. We actually went about 36 hours without any sleep (for obvious reasons). (He's ok now... we think.)
The point is, kids are unpredictable, especially babies. Though you can try to impose a schedule and can be mostly successful, you can't expect them to fully adhere to your schedule. Things will happen that muck up those schedules. In addition, activities that *you* want to do (web development, coding, etc) are going to take a back seat to Candy Land and Blue's Clues until the kids are asleep. Then you either try to cram 5 hours of grown-up activities into 2 hours or you wind up giving up some of the things you like. Still, I wouldn't give up my kids for anything.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
... the amount of coffee you guys drink???
"... always going forward 'cause we cant find reverse! "
Lose the fsckin pacifier :D. But seriously, they do more harm than good.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
as much "shift work" went overseas to China with our industrial base.
Citation please.
Or is this more anti-China, ill informed & xenophobic bullshit ?
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Let's see
a) get a good night's sleep so you feel healthy and refreshed in the morning
b) stay up late to watch the first volume of Death Note on DVD
Yeah, I guess on Slashdot (b) would be considered the only logical choice!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
When Orexin or Modafinil become cheap, then we will all work doubles and sleep 4hrs a night. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orexin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil
Some might say this is too soon, but I say it's not too soon enough.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
The number of university students who get less than 7 hours of sleep a night is probably 9/10 during finals, and 6/10 during the school year. I essentially hibernate during the winter and to a lesser extent, summer, but it's especially hard when working and having to commute for 1.5 hours just to get to university :/
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
I've found that the best way to keep yourself sane while reading Slashdot is to try not to get pulled into the "Slashdot subculture"'s groupthink. I read /. for the news and the articles, and the occasional post that either coaxes me to think in a completely different way about a story (hence, Insightful), throws out some fact that I didn't know before (usually informative), or just makes me chuckle.
Try not to get sucked in by the posters that try to turn damn near EVERYTHING into a political debate
And yes I served 15 months in Iraq (just got back and left the Army three months ago) and no, I'm not new here.
Here's to the crazy ones
Nono, you have to be mentally retarded to join the military in the first place. Don't take this as my opinion, take it as Joseph Hellers. I mean a whole catchphrase 'catch 22' did come from people in the military being mentally unsound.
I know that I need a full 8 hours or else I'll have to catch up on weekends. Here's a neat tool to find out just how much sleep you need. http://www.sleepphones.com/how_much I did the whole 2 week trial and determined that I have to have those eight hours. Now that I'm out of college and working, it's a lot easier to do that.
I was told by my doctor that the blue light can stimulate the brain and keep you awake. I haven't confirmed it, but it sounds plausible.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
There are 24 hours in a day, and if that isn't enough time, there is always night!
Our oldest son had a pacifier when he was a baby and is just fine. The way we see it, it's easier to get them to give up the pacifier later on than it is to get them to give up sucking on a finger. You can take the pacifiers away, but you can't take away their fingers.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
he was the incentive to put a tv in the bedroom; sleep & sex have declined ever since;-}
"Well, the first solution would be not to screw up your life by having kids... obviously."
Too bad your parents didn't figure that out in time.
Humm. Let's see having kids watching vs Death Note....
Well in your case you have probably made the right choice.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I watch the late night shows in the privacy of my home, the stuff I'm watching and want to do definitely would not be permitted on a bus! ;-)
Keep those peons working as much as possible. Don't worry, the "economy" benefits from it. Hell, look at those crazy Europeans with their 6 weeks of vacations for 20 year olds. Insane! Obviously their economy is going to bring them into total starvation for every person in their countries. What did you say? The Euro is killing the dollar? Well there must be some mistake... surely.
I agree. It seems like 1 in 10 is too low a number when you consider that anyone with a less than 12 month old is probably getting on the order of 6 hours of sleep at the most. I remember my first job where a new dad came back to work after his wife just had a baby. About 10 am, I hear extremely loud snoring coming from behind me. I turn around to see over the low cube walls that he had fallen asleep at his desk with his head resting on the keyboard. Even with help and understanding, it's a struggle with a baby to get quality sleep and be functional at work the next day.
"Nothing to see here. Move along."
That's what it sounds like to me.
And I'm quite certain that they get a good night's sleep almost every night - though IANAPG (prison guard) so i could be wrong.
In any case that 1 in 10, does it include incarcerated people? If so then really the numbers should be different (???)
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I blame it on StumbleUpon, but thats just me.
Actually, I think there's a pretty good case to be made that killing people does lead to mental damage. PTSD is rarely caused by revulsion or shock by one's own acts. It's generally caused by events that scare the crap out of you. In other words, it's nearly being killed by others that damages you, not killing them instead. Humans are generally better adapted to inflicting horrors on others than having them inflicted on themselves.
Many people sleep with their cell phones next to their heads.
BBC NEWS | Health | Mobiles linked to disturbed sleep
Planet MiniBox - Home to the world's leading shoutbox
"... I decided to get rid of my HDTV (and in fact, stop watching TV alltogether) as an experiment ... I actually keep better hours now. ..."
Dude get a Tivo, then you can have your cake and eat it also.
Or you can not use the pacifier at all, thus neatly sidestepping the issue of "kid trained for months/years to be suckling all the time needs to be un-trained now" issue. Quinine (or similar) works wonders wrt finger-sucking, btw.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Some people can eat nothing but cheese and meat and sugar and have low cholesterol and low triglycerides. I wouldn't advise it for everybody.
Some people can go for years without seeing a dentist and end up with no cavities when they do finally visit. I wouldn't advise it for everybody.
Some people smoke 3 packs a day and live to be 90 years old. I wouldn't advise it for everybody.
Just because Margaret Thatcher could go for long periods with little sleep without falling apart doesn't mean that the rule of 7-9 hours for most people is wrong. People who try to refute rules that DO well apply almost everyone you'll ever meet by pointing out lone examples where they may not apply are doing nothing but trying to shout down useful guides for us mortal humans who aren't winners of the genetic lottery. Exceptions-driven rules are pointless when the simpler rule applies to 99.9% of the population.
So, Margaret Thatcher may be able to work on 3-4 hours per night, but I think you can guess what I'd say to that.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Was this like a "on the lighter side" in this journal? And really, who would need a weekly report on death? Does it really change that much in a week?
I'm losing sleep in the way that I'm having to work harder to make money because SOMEONE in the white house is wasting my money. It's a huge drain to our economy, which is why we're so poor and why we have to work 2 jobs just to get by. That, of course, keeps us from getting enough sleep!
the article refers to *North*americans, *Central*americans or *South*americans? I am chilean (therefore, I *am* american) and we do not have the sleep problem over here.
Yes, I RTFA, so be kind and note the sarcasm.
Although I don't want to push the irrelevant political debate any further, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very real condition that many Iraq veterans are returning with. The fact that a military consultant such as youself doesn't even seem to be aware of this is troubling to say the least, and is somewhat indicative of the utter disregard with which we are currently treating our soldiers.
Killing a person in self-defense most likely won't cause any sort of major long-term psychological stress. Similarly, if faced with an enemy soldier in combat, you do what you have to in order to stay alive.
On the other hand, thanks to the moronic policies and tactics of our current round of politicians, many of our soldiers in Iraq are beginning to question themselves, as the "enemy opposition" is increasingly composed of desperate civilians. Suddenly, things begin to look very different --- after all, the primary victims of the Iraq war have been civilians, not soldiers.
We've gone and created Vietnam 2.0.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The attitude shown in the above quote from that sleep phones site is a big part of the problem. Needing only 6-7 hours of sleep a night is "lucky"?!
Another problem is artificial lighting. Ever been without electricity for 3 or more days? And not resorted to batteries or fire for light, be that a bonfire or a candle or a kerosene lantern? 30 minutes after the sun sets when it gets too dark to see, you'll probably be going to bed. Not much you can do in the dark-- talk a little maybe if you have people to talk to, do a little stargazing perhaps, and maybe still see well enough to do a little work if the moon is up and full and the sky isn't overcast. If you're not doing any of that, in 15 minutes in the dark you'll have fallen asleep out of a combination of boredom and sleepiness brought on by the dark.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Yes! Thank you for pointing this out. You are absolutely correct. I have never killed anyone, but I have issues with certain things as a result of being shot AT. I think I might have issues from not being ABLE to shoot back. I have talked with other vets (Air Force usually, from Vietnam) who have the same issues. The total lack of control, the randomness of it, the powerlessness... It's a crap situation under any circumstances.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
We turned our cable service off and returned the DVR at the end of last years Formula 1 season because that was pretty much all we watched on TV (all the kids stuff we buy on DVD or get from iTunes) but I'll tell ya, watching the European races live really hurts when you're on Pacific Time:
1. Set the alarm for 3:30AM
2. Cook full English breakfast
3. Start drinking beer if Kimi is winning.
4. Go to sleep ready for normal life
With the 2008 season a week away from firing back into action I'm seriously considering staying TV/Cable free, not just because of sleep disorientation every two weeks but because the channel that carries it - SpeedTV - sucks so bad. They push ads for NASCAR and crummy Reality TV shows down your eyes constantly.
As soon as the F1 folks realize there's a market for live streaming and/or downloadable HD F1 races the better.
They're called parents.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From my Slashdot journal:
Defenestrate: to throw out of a window.
Therefore could Fenestrate be defined as putting it back in?
Could the same rule be applied to "Defecate"? Or is "fecation" simply the act of eating, in which case, I should invite my next date to "fecate" at a fancy restaurant?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
wait what?.... time not found...
You still haven't isolated "doing something repulsive" from being targeted for death.
Your compelling evidence and eloquent response has persuaded me.~
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
My wife and I have the same problem and I've found that binge drinking and getting high only exacerbates the problem so there's not so much of that these days.
Seriously, when possible I like to get a 10 or 15 minute nap in during the day, two for preference. Once around 1 1/2 to 2 hours after waking (and waking up can be from 5am) and sometime in the afternoon.
Obviously this is just not practical on many days and I have to balance my need for a nap with my wife's skepticism with the habit but where and when you can do it, I'd thoroughly recommend it. Don't forget to set an alarm, there's nothing worse than over sleeping, feeling groggy and having to deal with a silent, angry woman and nappies.When bathing my 3 year old before his bed is a good time. I'll just lie on the bathroom rug and go off for 5 mins or so, does me the power of good and often stops me nodding off reading "Hairy Mcleary from Donalson's Dairy" for the fiftieth time.
We've gone and created Vietnam 2.0.
Oh, no, it's a much greater advancement then that.
It's like Vietnam 3000 Pro.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Logic has nothing to do with it.
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A fish.
I was staying up late watching the late night shows... ...put them on my mp3 player to watch while commuting and at work.
Holy cow, dude, you've got the Magic Bullet infomercial on your player?!!
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Who are these 9 well-rested bastards?
You can't handle the truth.
Second, I resent the implication that killing people leads to damaging a person mentally. Just because you disaprove of it doesn't mean it's on par with brain damage to those who choose to serve our country.
While I completely agree that the parent is an idiot, I don't know that I'd agree with this statement. My impression (and it cannot be anything more than that, I haven't done any formal study in the field) is that killing people is a traumatic event. My impression is that it may damage people mentally. There are some people who might not be affected by this, but they are the exception.
Before you jump on me, I think it can be neccessary. I would say someone being killed is a terrible thing: sometimes the alternative is worse. The same applies to war.
meh
Dude this is /.
I realize it makes you feel better about not getting any, but it's tiresome to see self-hating losers speak for the majority of Slashdotters.
Put aside your ego and apply those engineering skills to relationships - it's not that hard if you're willing to realize you're a loser. Fix it!
During the last 5 years or so, mandatory time off has been instituted, (10 hours I think, and have a limit of 100 hours per week. I finished my training before that, and so I went thru the 100-130 hour work week schedule for 5 years for my training. I was lucky since I never needed much sleep - only 4 hours a night, ever since I was 17 or so. Now that I'm 40+ I might need 5. Most surgeons that I know routinely work 12 hour days.
Even before med school and residency, I figured that my minimal sleep requirements let me live, learn, and do more than most people. I wound up becoming friends with several other people who had similar energy levels. As a mater of fact, I hate sleep - it's wasted time. Maybe once every two months or so, do I actually want to sleep, but wind up waking up after 6 hours without an alarm.
As far as my health goes, I get a catch a cold once a year or less, and most people think I'm much younger than I actually am.
Some people just don't need much sleep (Da Vinci, Jefferson), some need a lot. Humanity is a spectrum, there's always someone outside the curves.
..........FULL STOP.
Any article that claims 'people need X amount of Y or they'll be sick' is a big fat lie. The calorie requirements for an individual vary drastically from the '2000' figure everyone looks at. Not everyone must drink 4 cups of water a day. And claiming that you'll get ill if you have something other than 8 hours of rest is scientifically delinquent.
A large part of what affects your need for sleep is how much stress and toil you do daily. I have no stress, and no toil... I have a desk job that I enjoy, my home life is pleasant, and I'm a lazy type-B slob. No stress, not much exercise, and thus little need for vast stretches of rest. I am perky and happy with 5 hours of sleep a night. If I get 3 hours, then I take a nap on my lunch hour. I don't use caffeine or other stimulants... I just don't have a vast need for sleep.
Other people are different. The world is full of variety. And there certainly are many people out there that do stress themselves by subsisting on less sleep than they need... but don't try to cram 6 billion differently sized pegs into 'one size fits all' holes.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
This pretty much matches my experience. Throw in a headlamp, and I'll keep working on necessary details, but sunrise and sunset define my day when I'm away from the grid.
Then again, it probably has something to do with actually having to do a little physical labor to get through the daylight. Getting pizza delivery without a street address is challenging!
That sounds like there's a whole fuckton of "fear for your own life" in there. It's not a disproof at all.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Results sponsored by PharmCo's Hibnaberian. (Side effects include...)
Just kidding...
No, I will not work for your startup
... but napped instead.
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A fish.
That depends on what city you live in.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Yeah, PSTD is real. And some soldiers and Marines come back with it. Some come back with Athlete's Foot, too. Some who never killed or were in a combat unit come back with it. Some saw their friends killed in front of them, some can't take being away from home, some saw mass graves from Saddam's regime, some saw AQI's torture chambers. Most come back and start careers, raise families, and become highly productive members of society. Returning WWII vets didn't come back the same, as another poster pointed out, but some of them also saw other horrors of war, like, I don't know, concentration camps. Kids don't come back the same from college, boot camp, or hitchhiking across Europe, either. To say that killing people leads to PSTD or some other form of brain damage is a little strong. The correlation is from far from 1 to 1. Also, when you factor the rate of suicide and violence of returning veterans for their age group, they are much LESS likely than their civilian peers to kill themselves or others. The numbers only seem high because the military is so small. Perhaps the best way to keep violence down in 18-25yo males is to send them to the Marines. And before we start in with how we're "treating" our service members, let's remember that this is what they signed up for. We're more than 4 years into this war, the typical enlistment period. Almost everyone in the military has either joined since the Iraq war began or reenlisted since then, and the reenslistment rates have never been higher. I know liberal America can never believe that people would voluntarily sign up to go to war, but it's true. Tens of thousands each year sign up, because they want to go to Iraq and serve their country, and tens of thousands more reenlist each year despite (or maybe because of) the frequent deployments. And soldiers are questioning themselves? Really? Because from what I've seen (and I am intel, so I've seen quite a lot), soldiers are seeing the fruits of their labor. Violence is down, Awakening groups are taking control of their nighborhoods, we now have 9 out of 18 provinces turned over to total Iraqi control, Sadr just extended his 6-month cease-fire on Jaysh al Mahdi, oil production is on the rise, etc etc. Morale is high and things are looking good (though if you only watched CNN, you'd think just the opposite). The fact that AQI uses "desperate civilians" just shows how desperate they are. AQI is on the run, and they know it. And BTW, we have Vietnam veterans in Iraq right now, and they've all made public statements that Iraq is nothing like Vietnam, but you'd know more about both than they would, right?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
One in ten Americans are Latino.
One in Ten Americans are Blogging.
One in ten Americans are either practicing sadomasochists or have engaged in at least one sadomasochistic experience in their lifetime.
One in ten Americans are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.
One in ten Americans are reckoned to have got their first job at McDonald's.
One in ten Americans are unemployable because of draconian drug laws.
One in ten Americans are sued each year.
One in ten Americans are receiving food stamps.
One in ten Americans are without health insurance.
One in ten Americans are foreign-born.
One in ten Americans are trying to start a business at any given time.
One in ten Americans are gay.
One in ten Americans are tattooed.
One in ten Americans are vegetarian. (Probably as a result of their experiences working at McDonald's.)
One in ten Americans are currently addicted to alcohol or drugs.
One in ten Americans are behind bars.
One in ten Americans are affected with liver disease.
No wonder they don't have time for sleep!
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22One+in+Ten+Americans+Are%22+-sleep
I'm not the one complaining about lack of sleep, am I?
My point was simple and non-flame-bait-ish. If your sleep and personal time and interest are that important to you, then don't have children. You aren't a saint for having children and nobody wants to hear parents whine about their lack of sleep or time. You didn't contract malaria saving orphans in the third world. You screwed yourself out of solid sleep by spreading your seed. There's nothing wrong with that. More power to you. But if it really mattered, you would have made other choices.
However, if you've already made that choice and then decided that you really would love to have some time to yourself, then obviously make the time. Change the offspring's schedules or have someone babysit them or... whatever. Obviously the choices are limited.
God damn, breeders are sensitive. You guys should get some more sleep so you won't be so testy.
Perhaps we've evolved a bit beyond that... We've had fire for a long time as a species, so I would think that we can function even in the dark. If you slept for over 12 hours during 3 days without electricity, then you're probably just really tired. But in controlled lab studies in complete isolation without any outside light cues, humans rarely need any more than 9 hours.