Are we chronically sleep deprived?

Bulletin of the Psychonomic SocietyPublished 1 July 1975Open access

Wilse B. Webb, H. W. Agnew

Citations126

TL;DR

The hypothesis that living in contemporary society produces a state of chronic sleep deprivation in humans is suggested.

Abstract

The sleep of 16 young adult male subjects was studied for 4 consecutive nights in the laboratory using all night electroencephalography. For the first 3 nights, the subjects retired for sleep at 11:00 p.m. and were aroused in the morning at 7:00 a.m. On the 4th night, the subjects retired at 11:00 p.m. and were allowed to sleep in the morning until they awakened spontaneously. The ad-lib sleep night resulted in 126 min more sleep than was found on the 3rd night of controlled sleep. These results suggest the hypothesis that living in contemporary society produces a state of chronic sleep deprivation in humans.

Keywords

PsychologyNeuroscience

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PubMedRegularity in the control of the free-running sleep-wakefulness rhythm.

19 Citations1974Wilse B. Webb, H. W. Agnew

In the present experiment, rigid control over the sleep and wake-up times was employed in an attempt to contain the natural rhythm to a 24-hr cycle, indicating that, for practical purposes, the free-running sleep-wakefulness rhythm can be contained to a 23-hour cycle by rigid control of the sleep portion of the cycle.

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