Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!houxm!hjuxa!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Sleeping Message-ID: <2026@peora.UUCP> Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 09:13:58 EST Article-I.D.: peora.2026 Posted: Fri Mar 14 09:13:58 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 21:48:57 EST References: <519@hoptoad.uucp> <130@sfsup.UUCP> <498@tekig5.UUCP> Organization: Concurrent Computer Corporation, Orlando, Fl Lines: 34 Greg Woods writes: > > and I have to sleep in the afternoon. > > HAVE to?? Do you pass out in the middle of doing something? Or do you > consciously choose to go lie down and sleep, so you can be sure that you > got as much sleep as you believe you need? Think about it. Well, first of all I must state my position that I disagree with Mr. Woods, and I'm moderately familiar with the research on the subject. It has indeed been shown that people deprived of sleep don't show any massive degradation in their abilities to perform certain tasks, but there are other factors involved too: In particular, I would say yes, that a person deprived of sleep does essentially, to use Mr. Woods' words, "pass out". People tend to stay awake if kept awake by situations that require them to remain alert; but, when deprived of sleep, at the first opportunity to do so the person will spontaneously fall asleep. This should be obvious to anyone who is a student who has stayed up too late studying, and (to his or her embarassment) falls asleep repeatedly during a lecture the next day. It is also more dangerously apparent in a person who drives a long distance after not getting enough sleep. In either case, the person definitely didn't "consciously choose to go lie down and sleep so thay could be sure they got as much sleep as they believed they needed". There's a really good book which I'd recommend highly, titled _The_ Anatomy_of_Sleep_, which discusses this (and many other related subjects) in a lot of detail. It's a fairly short book, too. Unfortunately, my copy is back in Atlanta, so I don't know the author. I think it was published by Ciba/Geigy. (It's a medical text, so you can probably find it in a university medical library). -- E. Roskos