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The Importance of Sleep

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You made it! Hopefully, it was not a wrong click, but you are interested in learning more about the importance of sleep. Hats off, as we appreciate your interest. Very few of us actually think about that which 1/3 of our entire lives are spent doing! How can that be the case?

"I will have time to sleep when I die!"
or
"Sleep is for the lazy!"

Have you ever heard one of those type-A personality folks say this? Well, this person, as passionate as he might be, is dead wrong! And, if he realize it or not, without sleep, he could be catching up on that dead-time sleep before they had planned on it. Going without sleep can be deadly!

There are those very few individuals in the world who seem to require less sleep than the rest of us. Sleep professionals continue to try to unlock this mystery. But for the rest of us, well…we have to get the proper amount of sleep our bodies and minds need! As stated in the Sleep and Debt page, we need on average of 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. And, you know…someone isn't necessarily lucky to not have to sleep as much…because when seen from a different perspective, sleep can be a quite enjoyable aspect of our lives!

Real Life Examples

In the next few paragraphs, we are going to share with you some of the noted cases in the news media over the past few years there were directly related to not getting enough sleep. As you will see, the consequences can be deadly.

One of the most famous cases with which you probably are familiar, is the ExxonValdez in 1989. The environmental impact of 258,000 barrels of crude oil dumped into the waters around Alaska was devastating. If we asked most people today what was the cause of this accident, they would attribute it to the helmsman's drinking of alcohol, which was reported so heavily by the media. However, what few of us found out is: the accident actually was in great part due to the sleep debt of this shipmate and NOT the alcohol.

Time and time again in the news, we sadly hear of otherwise responsible parents who unknowingly or forgetfully leave their small children locked in a hot car only to return to find them dead from heat exhaustion. These parents say they simply forgot to drop the child off at the day-care center or we busy in a meeting and didn't even realize their child was in the car. We can say these folks were 'overworked', but in great part, this translates directly into - they did not get the appropriate amount of sleep. When friends and coworkers

The National Sleep Foundation found that 31% of the people who drive fall asleep while driving at some point in their lives. Hundreds of thousands accidents, and thousands of people die on the road every year because of falling asleep at the wheel. And, billions of dollars are spent annually on the loss of life due to this problem, all due to people uncontrollably falling asleep, which means they are not getting enough quality sleep in the first place. The statistics are staggering!

And, as far as airplane accidents…you probably guessed it: sleep deprivation is the number one cause of accidents in the air reported by the National Transportation Safety Board. A plane full of passengers can have a pilot or pilots asleep in the cockpit, and we can all figure out how unsafe and devastating it can be when this happens…it ain't rocket science! In fact, this has been one of the biggest complaints against the airline industry in the requirements of the pilots. Many pilots have been seen on national television complaining about the hours they must work, but this situation has still gone markedly unchanged for decades. Hopefully someday this will change, but for now, it remains one of the biggest problems for air travel today.

Jet lag on passengers can also take it toll on folks. People who fly over many time zones are noted to fall down from exhaustion in meetings and important business affairs. Even President Bush Sr. while traveling in 1992 in Tokyo, Japan vomited and slipped underneath his table due to exhaustion from his travels. How is that for behavior of the world's most powerful political figure at the time? His biological sleep clock was still set to Washington time and the jet lag caught up with him, making him spill his cookies in front of the world.

Symptoms of Sleep Debt

The following is a list of some of the effects of not getting enough sleep. (Some of you might have already read some of the items on this list in the Sleep Debt page.)

• Apathy
• Decrease or Lapses in Attention Span
• Erratic Behavior
• Irritability
• Anxiousness or Anxiety
• Drowsiness
• Impaired Memory
• Slowed Thinking
• Slowed Reaction Times
• Impaired Judgments

(It is important to note here that our sleep debt can be noticed to be more predominant at certain times of day because of our natural biological clocks, which you can read more about in the Circadian Cycles page of this site.)

Again, these are some of the symptoms that might let us know we need more sleep. Quite honestly, maybe like you, we did not realize how before doing the research how devastating the lack of appropriate sleep, quality and quantity, could be on our lives and even the lives of those around us. Sometimes, it might seem scary when hearing some of the stories of lost lives and damage to our environment, but to run from these truths about our lives does not make them go away. In fact, more than ever, studies are showing more and more evidence of the negative effects of not getting enough sleep.

"Sleep is undeniably one of the most
important aspects of our lives!"

In the Stasis Sleep™ Pillow Companion Guide©, which is available FREE (while supplies last) to you with every order, you can read everything from this web site and more. We will not leave you high and dry! We provide you with a revolutionary support pillow, the Stasis Sleep ™ Pillow helpful information on sleep studies, self-diagnostic sleep test, a sleep diary, and more, which can help you achieve your goal of getting a better night's sleep.

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