According to the Cornell Chronicle Online, a new book about sleep by James B. Maas includes advice on sleep tips for teens, seniors, shift workers, athletes and women who are pregnant or going through menopause as well as time-management advice to combat stress, tips for managing jetlag and guidelines on sleep medications.
Maas has been teaching Psychology 101 at Cornell for 47 years, with an enrollment of 1,600 students some years, giving him the record for having taught more than 65,000 students in his Cornell career.
In his new book, Maas notes:
• It takes one hour of sleep to pay for every two hours of wakefulness.
Thus, the ideal amount of sleep is eight hours per night.
• Even if you fall asleep and wake in the same position, chances are you've tossed and turned as many as 60 times during the night.
Movements mark the transition periods between sleep stages. Only in REM sleep is there no movement.
• Sleep deprivation costs the United States $66 billion annually in lost production, accidents, illness and premature death.
• Drowsiness and fatigue are responsible for approximately 80,000 car accidents per day in America. These crashes result in an estimated 1,500 fatalities and 71,000 injuries each year.
• Stress is the No. 1 cause of insomnia; 65 percent of Americans say stress disturbs their sleep.
• High school and college students are the most pathologically sleep-deprived population in the nation -- 86 percent of teens don't get enough sleep. Thus, teens are 71 percent more likely to drive drowsy and/or fall asleep at the wheel compared to other age groups.
• After 17 to 19 hours without sleep, brain activity is similar to someone with a blood alcohol content of .05 (.08 is the legal limit for intoxication).
• In REM sleep, the previous day's events are solidified into permanent memory traces, and sequences of learned skills (like a new golf swing) become muscle memories.
• Sleeping longer than six hours per night helps in memory retention, but it takes eight hours to fully incorporate learned material. Thus, getting a full night's sleep after studying for an exam, rehearsing a presentation, or learning a new set of skills is most beneficial.
• If you sleep eight hours, you'll dream three to five times, spending about 100 minutes in your theater of the night. Dreams occur about every 90 minutes during sleep and last from nine to 30 minutes or more.
• People who are extroverted seem to remember more of their dreams than those who tend to be more guarded and introverted.
• Staying in bed longer can actually keep you from gaining weight. The less sleep you get, the less efficiently your appetite-regulation system works.
• The ideal room temperature for sleep is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The ideal naptime is 20-90 minutes.
• The weight of mattresses doubles every 10 years due to dust mites so be sure to invest in a new one every decade. Stick with 100 percent cotton sheets for their absorbent and breathable quality.
