Dangers of Sleeplessness

In his book, The Promise of Sleep, Dr. Dement says, "The health threats of our modern antisleep culture are killing us." (Dement p 219)

The dangers are from health effects and also from accidents. People are blind to how close they are to falling asleep. Remember Dr. Dement's study mentioned in Napping?

Consider that sleep deprivation has been used by countries around the world as a form of torture to extract information from prisoners during interrogation. Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister from 1977-83, wrote a book, White Nights: The Story of a Prisoner in Russia, about his experiences with the KGB. In it he tells of losing the will to resist when deprived of sleep. "In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it."

Knowing that sleep deprivation has been used deliberately to disorient people and wear down their resistance helps us to understand that it impairs our ability to make decisions and to focus.

There are famous accidents where sleeplessness was blamed at least in part. One is the Challenger explosion in 1986 when 7 astronauts were tragically killed in an explosion shortly after liftoff. Although the Roger's Commission found that physical defects such as O-ring failure caused the accident, the sub-committee on Human Factors found that many employees and managers had worked long hours before the launch and that managers especially, were sleep deprived which caused judgment errors.

The grounding of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker in pristine waters off Alaska is another very famous accident that is blamed on fatigue and sleeplessness. This accident caused over two billion dollars in damage and cleanup costs that could be measured and much more in terms of devastation to the environment. But the news media did not dwell on the fact that sleep debt played such a large part in this accident. We need to be aware of the tragic costs of fatigue and drowsiness.

There are many non-famous accidents that happen every day. Individuals are maimed and families tragically torn apart by accidents that could be avoided if we were aware of the grave dangers of sleepiness. There is a study by Dr. Coren that shows that changing to daylight savings time in the spring, which causes people to lose an hour of sleep, increases traffic accidents ¹. Remember that drowsiness is the last sign of danger before we fall asleep so get off the road if you are having trouble keeping your eyes open while driving.

Road accidents, work accidents and home accidents all are increased by our sleep debt. There are more hidden dangers in sleeplessness, too. Our overall physical health is affected. Our immune system is weakened, we gain weight because hormones that affect metabolism, fat deposits and the use of fat are all compromised by too little sleep. Other affected hormones deal with our ability to heal, our brain connections for memory and learning. We become susceptible to diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Especially for teenagers, sleeplessness can stunt growth.

Our mental and psychological health is also impaired when we don't sleep enough. We don't feel alert, we can't make decisions effectively, we can't focus for long, we feel miserable and get angry and annoyed easily. Many behaviour problems in children may be due to insufficient sleep.

Shift workers and parents of young children are two groups of people who are especially sleep deprived. What can be done about this deprivation? See Help with Sleep Debt for suggestions if you fall into one of these groups.

To do:

Recognize the dangers of sleeplessness and determine to do better at managing your sleep debt. Remind yourself of the benefits of sleep:

Being alert and energetic while awake
Greater ability to focus
Feeling healthy and fresh
Operating at maximum capacity
Improved creativity
Optimal operation of hormones, digestion, immune system, and mental capacities - in short, better health!

Footnotes:

1. See online article in SelfhelpMagazine: Daylight Savings Time Sure Bet For Increase in Accidents, Fatigue

Contents

Dangers of Sleeplessness

To do:

Footnotes: