Sleep is critically important, according to former NASA scientist and fatigue management expert Mark Rosekind, who said the infamous Challenger space shuttle explosion and the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown were both "related to sleep-deprived judgment errors."
Falling short of the optimal eight or nine hours of sleep a night, students get four to six hours of shut-eye on average, according to Rosekind.
"How much sleep do we need? More than we get," Rosekind said at a Penn Humanities Forum presentation yesterday in Logan Hall.
For an audience of approximately 60, Rosekind discussed how America's "24/7 society" deprives citizens of sleep, the physiological factors that affect sleep deprivation and strategies to improve alertness.
Rosekind said that society has "evolved to operate around the clock. The Internet is the epitome of this change."
And technology is changing faster than biological clocks.
"Humans haven't changed at all," Rosekind said. "We still have internal clocks and basic needs for sleep. If you disrupt them, you will pay."
According to Rosekind, sleep deprivation increases attention lapses and lethargy, and harms mood, memory, communication and judgment.
"Judgment can go downhill when you disrupt the clock," he said, warning that "fatigue is a safety issue."
When people lose sleep, it builds up into a sleep debt. Think of it like a bank account," he said, adding that, "Two nights of deeper sleep can zero out the sleep debt."
To avoid sleep deprivation, Rosekind advised not to "drink too much alcohol before bed. If you drank too much, stay awake for one to two hours so you can metabolize the alcohol before your sleep period," he said, adding that alcohol disrupts sleep patterns.
He also advised people "to practice strategic use of caffeine" by drinking it only when tired and not all afternoon. Otherwise, "you'll increase your tolerance."
He said that studies have shown that short naps can improve performance.
Rosekind urged the audience to take either short or long naps, noting that sleeping less than 45 minutes avoids "sleep inertia," the grogginess that persists post-nap, and sleeping over two hours allows the body to complete a full sleep cycle.
Dispelling the myth that the amino acid tryptophan found in turkey and dairy products induces sleep, he noted that, in order to ingest the five grams of tryptophan necessary to affect sleep, "you would need to eat 55 slices of cheese, half a turkey and 2.5 gallons of milk."
Sarah McHugh, a College sophomore, said she found the presentation "interesting."
"I'm sleep-deprived, so it helped me," she added. "I hope I take more naps, but with school it's hard to accommodate that."
