We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. In his book Counting Sheep, Paul Martin - a behavioural
biologist - describes a society which is just too busy to sleep and which does not give sleeping the importance it
deserves.
Modern society has invented reasons not to sleep. We are now a 24/7 society where shops and services
must be available all hours. We spend longer hours at work than we used to, and more time getting to work.
Mobile phones and email allow us to stay in touch round the clock and late-night TV and the Internet tempt
us away from our beds. When we need more time for work or pleasure, the easy solution is to sleep less. The
average adult sleeps only 6.2 hours a night during the week, whereas research shows that most people need
eight or even eight and a half hours' sleep to feel at their best. Nowadays, many people have got used to
sleeping less than they need and they live in an almost permanent state of 'sleep debt'.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879 our daily cycle of sleep used to depend on the hours of
daylight. People would get up with the sun and go to bed at nightfall. But nowadays our hours of sleep are
mainly determined by our working hours (or our social life) and most people are woken up artificially by an
alarm clock. During the day caffeine, the world's most popular drug, helps to keep us awake. 75% of the
world's population habitually consume caffeine, which up to a point masks the symptoms of sleep deprivation.
What does a chronic lack of sleep do to us? As well as making us irritable and unhappy as humans, it also
reduces our motivation and ability to work. This has serious implications for society in general. Doctors, for
example, are often chronically sleep deprived, especially when they are on 'night call', and may get less than
three hours' sleep. Lack of sleep can seriously impair their mood, judgment, and ability to take decisions. Tired
engineers, in the early hours of the morning, made a series of mistakes with catastrophic results. On our
roads and motorways lack of sleep kills thousands of people every year. Tests show that a tired driver can be
just as dangerous as a drunken driver. However, driving when drunk is against the law but driving when
exhausted isn't. As Paul Martin says, it is very ironic that we admire people who function on very little sleep
instead of criticizing them for being irresponsible. Our world would be a much safer, happier place if everyone,
whatever their job, slept eight hours a night.
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