... like this one, with a straight lede:
The average person gets seven hours of sleep instead of the necessary nine to 10, putting themselves in more danger and risk, a Wayne State University professor said.
WSU Psychology Professor Diana Gant, a sleep expert, has studied sleep for over 17 years now and said that going without enough sleep is as much of a public and personal safety hazard as going to work drunk.
Not getting enough sleep can make people clumsy, stupid and unhappy, she said.
“Think of sleep like exercise. People exercise because it's healthy. Sleep is healthy,” Gant said.
When she studied major disasters, like the space shuttle Challenger, the accident at Russia's Chernobyl nuclear reactor and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, she said the “element of sleeplessness” was involved and contributed to all of them.
“[Sleeplessness] maybe – probably – caused all of them. The press focused on the possibility that the captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk, but under-shifting and long shifts on the ship may have led to the third mate's falling asleep at the wheel,” Gant said.
Most people need sleep and are not getting it, Gant said. She said they figure they do not need as much sleep and can get more done.
“Believe it or not, some people think that going without sleep is the big, sophisticated, macho thing to do. They figure...that the rules don't apply to them,” Gant said.
The lack of sleep may work for a while, she said, but sooner or later they begin to “suffer the consequences.” She said people can start having real problems.
A person can tell if they are getting enough sleep by how they act around and after meals, she said.
“Ask yourself: Do you usually feel sleepy or doze off when you are sitting quietly after a large lunch?” Gant said.
The lack of sleep has many effects, she said, and that they can hurt a person.
Gant said a person may feel as if his or her clothes weigh a few extra pounds. Even more than usual, the person tends to be drowsy after lunch, the professor said.
“If, say, you cut back from eight to six hours, you'll probably become depressed. Cut back even further, to five hours, and you may find yourself falling asleep at stoplights while driving home,” Gant said.
The sleep expert said she gathers her information partly from laboratory studies and party statistics, statistics on the connection between sleeplessness and accidents.
She said she has particularly paid attention to the number of traffic accidents in the state of Michigan right after the shift to Daylight Savings Time in the spring.
“[That's] when most people lose an hour's sleep. There's an 8 percent increase in accidents the day after the time change,” Gant said.
The opposite happens when Daylight Savings Time ends around the middle of fall, she said.
“There's a corresponding decrease in accidents in the fall when people gain an extra hour of sleep,” Gant said.
The WSU faculty member said she started studying sleep when she was a graduate student and wrote her thesis, then her dissertation, about sleep.
“I wanted to write about people who got little sleep and remained productive,” she said.
“The problem was, when my subjects arrived in laboratories and got a chance to sleep in dark, quiet rooms, they all slept for about nine hours,” Gant said.
That and other work convinced her that most people suffer from sleep deprivation, she said.
Gant said it is easy to solve the problem of not getting enough sleep, and she said almost everyone on the field agrees.
“First, you need someplace that's dark and quiet. Shut off all the lights and draw the shades. Second, it's good to relax for an hour or so before going to bed. Watch TV, read a good book,” Gant said.
Drinking, especially caffeine and alcohol, and eating, chocolate and other foods that contain a lot of sugar, are bad before sleep and people should not do that, she said.
Tobacco is also bad, Gant said.
“That'll disturb your sleep...As their effects wear off, your brain actually becomes more alert. Even if you fall asleep, you may find yourself waking up at 2 or 3 a.m., and then you can't get back to sleep,” the expert said.
“Plus, it should be cool, about 65 degrees is best for good sleep,” she said.
The last step, is to “finally, get a comfortable bed,” she said.
“Keep your bed linens clean and fresh,” Gant said.
******
Here's another one with a bit of an alternate lede:
******
The average person gets seven hours of sleep instead of the necessary nine to 10, putting themselves in more danger and risk, a Wayne State University professor said.
WSU Psychology Professor Diana Gant, a sleep expert, has studied sleep for over 17 years now and said that going without enough sleep is as much of a public and personal safety hazard as going to work drunk.
Not getting enough sleep can make people clumsy, stupid and unhappy, she said.
“Think of sleep like exercise. People exercise because it's healthy. Sleep is healthy,” Gant said.
When she studied major disasters, like the space shuttle Challenger, the accident at Russia's Chernobyl nuclear reactor and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, she said the “element of sleeplessness” was involved and contributed to all of them.
“[Sleeplessness] maybe – probably – caused all of them. The press focused on the possibility that the captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk, but under-shifting and long shifts on the ship may have led to the third mate's falling asleep at the wheel,” Gant said.
Most people need sleep and are not getting it, Gant said. She said they figure they do not need as much sleep and can get more done.
“Believe it or not, some people think that going without sleep is the big, sophisticated, macho thing to do. They figure...that the rules don't apply to them,” Gant said.
The lack of sleep may work for a while, she said, but sooner or later they begin to “suffer the consequences.” She said people can start having real problems.
A person can tell if they are getting enough sleep by how they act around and after meals, she said.
“Ask yourself: Do you usually feel sleepy or doze off when you are sitting quietly after a large lunch?” Gant said.
The lack of sleep has many effects, she said, and that they can hurt a person.
Gant said a person may feel as if his or her clothes weigh a few extra pounds. Even more than usual, the person tends to be drowsy after lunch, the professor said.
“If, say, you cut back from eight to six hours, you'll probably become depressed. Cut back even further, to five hours, and you may find yourself falling asleep at stoplights while driving home,” Gant said.
The sleep expert said she gathers her information partly from laboratory studies and party statistics, statistics on the connection between sleeplessness and accidents.
She said she has particularly paid attention to the number of traffic accidents in the state of Michigan right after the shift to Daylight Savings Time in the spring.
“[That's] when most people lose an hour's sleep. There's an 8 percent increase in accidents the day after the time change,” Gant said.
The opposite happens when Daylight Savings Time ends around the middle of fall, she said.
“There's a corresponding decrease in accidents in the fall when people gain an extra hour of sleep,” Gant said.
The WSU faculty member said she started studying sleep when she was a graduate student and wrote her thesis, then her dissertation, about sleep.
“I wanted to write about people who got little sleep and remained productive,” she said.
“The problem was, when my subjects arrived in laboratories and got a chance to sleep in dark, quiet rooms, they all slept for about nine hours,” Gant said.
That and other work convinced her that most people suffer from sleep deprivation, she said.
Gant said it is easy to solve the problem of not getting enough sleep, and she said almost everyone on the field agrees.
“First, you need someplace that's dark and quiet. Shut off all the lights and draw the shades. Second, it's good to relax for an hour or so before going to bed. Watch TV, read a good book,” Gant said.
Drinking, especially caffeine and alcohol, and eating, chocolate and other foods that contain a lot of sugar, are bad before sleep and people should not do that, she said.
Tobacco is also bad, Gant said.
“That'll disturb your sleep...As their effects wear off, your brain actually becomes more alert. Even if you fall asleep, you may find yourself waking up at 2 or 3 a.m., and then you can't get back to sleep,” the expert said.
“Plus, it should be cool, about 65 degrees is best for good sleep,” she said.
The last step, is to “finally, get a comfortable bed,” she said.
“Keep your bed linens clean and fresh,” Gant said.
******
Here's another one with a bit of an alternate lede:
How many hours of
sleep do you get per night? Chances are, not enough.
Diana Gant, Wayne
State psychology professor and one of the nation’s leaders in the study of
sleep, said most
people are not getting enough sleep at night, needing nine to 10 hours per
night while the average person only gets about seven hours.
“Think of sleep
like exercise,” she said. “People exercise because it’s healthy. Sleep is
healthy.”
So how do you know
if you’re getting enough sleep? Gant said it’s easy.
“Ask yourself: Do
you usually feel sleepy or doze off when you are sitting quietly after a large
lunch?” she said.
Gant, who has been
in the WSU psychology department for 17 years, also said that going without
enough sleep can make people clumsy, stupid and unhappy.
“Going without
enough sleep is as much of a public and personal safety hazard as going to work
drunk,” she said.
She said she has
studied the connection between sleeplessness and accidents, specifically
focusing on the time changes due to daylight savings time.
“There’s an eight
percent increase in accidents the day after the time change, and there’s a
corresponding decrease in accidents in the fall when people gain an hour of
sleep,” she said. “When people get up just an hour early is the equivalent of a
national jet lag. It isn’t simply due to loss of sleep, but complications from
resetting the biological clock.”
Looking at a lot
of major disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and Gant said she can
tell that the element of sleeplessness was involved.
“The press focused
on the possibility that the captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk,” Gant said.
“But under shifting and long shifts on the ship may have led to the third
mate’s falling asleep at the wheel.”
The question we
all have now is: how can we get enough sleep? According to Gant, it starts with
relaxing an hour or so before bed, and sleeping in a dark, quiet room. Also, avoid
eating or drinking, especially caffeine and alcohol.
“Tobacco, coffee
and alcohol are all bad,” she said. “As their affects wear off, your brain
actually becomes more alert. Even if you fall asleep, you may find yourself
waking up at two or three a.m.”
Finally, Gant said
to keep the room cool, dark and quiet, and your bed linens clean.
“You need someplace
that’s dark and quiet,” she said. “Get a comfortable bed and keep your bed linens
clean and fresh ... Plus, it should be cool, about 65 (degrees) is best for good sleep.”
******
This next one had a nice alternate lede:
******
Besides being major disasters, what do the
space shuttle Challenger, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident, and the Exxon
Valdez oil spill all have in common?
All were related to – and likely caused
by – sleeplessness, according to Wayne State University Psychology Professor
Diana Gant.
One of the nation’s leaders in the
study of sleep, Gant said she has been a professor in the psychology department
for 17 years, but that her studies
date back even earlier to when she wrote her graduate thesis and dissertation
on the topic.
Gant said that when she began, she
wanted to write about people who got little sleep and managed to remain
productive.
However, she said she instead became convinced that the majority of
people suffer from sleep deprivation when all of her subjects slept for about
nine hours in the dark, quiet laboratory setting.
Although many people claim that they
only need seven or eight – and some even just four or five – hours of sleep per
night, Gant said that nine hours is better, and that 10 is ideal to perform
optimally.
Unfortunately, according to Gant, the
average person only gets about seven hours of sleep each night – and many are
under the impression that “going without sleep is the big, sophisticated, macho
thing to do,” and that they can get more done by staying awake.
However, those with this mindset will
eventually suffer the consequences. A severe
lack of sleep is just as much of a public and personal safety hazard as going
to work drunk would be, as it can make people clumsy or unhappy, said Gant.
In particular, the sleep-deprived tend
to become drowsy after lunch and feel weighed-down. In the worst cases, the victims may become
depressed and incapable of performing daily tasks such as driving safely, said
Gant.
On top of studying lab results and
statistics on the connection between sleeplessness and accidents, Gant said she
has also scrutinized the number of traffic accidents occurring after the shift
to daylight savings time – when most people lose an hour’s worth of sleep.
“There’s an 8 percent increase in
accidents the day after the time change, and there’s a corresponding decrease in
accidents in the fall when people gain an extra hour of sleep,” Gant said.
To combat this problematic sleep
deprivation, Gant suggested that everyone sleep in a dark, quiet, cool room,
relax for a certain amount of time before bed, avoid eating or drinking –
especially alcohol or caffeine – near their bedtime, and sleep in a
comfortable, clean bed set.
Gant said that there needs to be a shift in mindset as
well. “Think of sleep like
exercise. People exercise because it’s
healthy. Sleep is healthy.”
******
******
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