Comments on: The Science Of Sleep

Lesley Stahl Explores The Latest Findings In Sleep Research

[noettl]

The report does nothing to help anyone who suffer serious sleep disorders. The report leaves out sleep apnea, people who have to work a night shift,migraines, death in the family, low self esteem, general depression, urban noise (Think Frank Sinatra''s New York, New York -"I want to wake up in the City that Never Sleeps?") This country profits from a multi-billion dollar industry called Starbucks, and the Meth and Cocaine epidemics. Where were any of these issues presented? Between a 2 part report -Pharmaceutical Ads on sleeping pills? Why didn''t the clinic use people who actually have sleep problems? Do we really care how healthy people who volunteer for testing really react to anything? What was this report really revealing? Was the report just showing how they process small studies? You might as well do a report on bio-rhythms or the way acupuncture needles affect the skin.
Why not conduct the report after assessing what viewers know of the subject and then present these questions to the amazing scientist in the white lab coat beeping the college kid out his delta waves?

[rushlimpdrug]

Boy, I''m really sleepy now.

[pukajohn]

As interesting as the news article was there are some questions that come to mind regarding the the testing. After years of participating in meditation which when effectively and routinely excercised one learns to get into the gap or a state of alfa. Those that do practice meditiation in this manner can get by, and are among the most productive human beings on the planet, without much sleep at all.I guess the question and comment is have these groups that did this study tested this. If not, it would be interesting to see the results if they would spend the time to study what seems like, but really isn''t a phenomena, the effectiveness of those who can get by without almost no sleep what so ever. ANy comments of your own?

[notbyintent]

Unfortunately, the research presented by Ms Stahl are the usual interesting but medically worthless stuff that permeates our press. I''m sorry that 60 minutes have some to this type of uncritical journalism. People have been doing sleep research for years. Where is the data that shows that people who feel refreshed after 4 hrs of sleep is more likely to do something bad than people who sleep eight hrs? Then to use fMRI as a quantitative measure of something wrong--where is the data that fMRI can be used quantitatively this way? Finally, that fruitfly story is just ridiculous--if I prevented you from sleeping for days on end, you''d probably not be interested in *** either. Who needs to fund his research at hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn this? Unfortunately, much of biological research dollars are funding predictable and worthless nonsense like this--following accepted scientific research methodologies of course. Perhaps 60 minutes can do a expose on what kind of nonsense we are funding these days.

[ajaxtheleast]

They sat this guy down and said "Make up
something about sleep for the people.".

[anonymous001]

Isn''t it odd that after tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (routinely performed on children almost as a rite of passage until the 1950s) came under fire and was practically stopped being done, we eventually developed epidemic problems with obesity and diabetes?

In my opinion, it''s not a coincidence. Sleep disordered breathing (and all of it''s sequelae) is the result of this monumental medical decision.

[russo0303]

Has anyone herd of EarthPulse Technologies, Sleep on Command. It is an electronic machine that sends magnetic waves through your brain and controles your sleep. Just wanted to know if anyone had any info. on this.

[keygirl13]

Your sleep story was very interesting,but one thing not mentioned was the fact that maybe sleep is protecting a person''s mental state. In five years I lost my mother, my daughter and my son. Instead of turning into a basket case, I found I needed to sleep every couple of hours. A trip to the store wore me out. Back home I headed for the bed and fell into a deep sleep. This was repeated for a couple of years receeding bit by bit. Fighting this did no good, I could find myself about to fall asleep on my feet. So I stopped fighting it and to this day, I''m still getting better, tho I do get at least 8 hrs of sleep, plus a mid day nap.

[maiingan]

The most culpable element of modern life in our sleep deprivation is the alarm clock. Nobody should be required to awake because of an alarm clock!
We do have internal clocks which can be amazingly accurate in waking us up when we tell them to. If we didn''t rely on alarm clocks, we''d go to bed earlier; and populations with different natural sleep regimes, like teenagers, wouldn''t be asked to show up someplace like school, before they''re had enough sleep according to their real needs.
By the way, if the people who wanted to slash our sleep need could get their way, one of the first harmful effects would be that our use of fuels would jump to light the environments of the people suddenly sleeping less and wanting to do things requiring sight.

[slavicsiren]

In the early 80s my then husband declared that I had to get up every night with our blind baby who was not on a solar schedule and therefore, would be up regularly 2-4 hours a night for about 8 years. The reason? I made less money than he did. I worked outside of the home and took care of the older child. I started to regain lost weight when this baby came home. I remember one day when he had been up very late the night before and I had to get him up very early in the a.m. to get him back on track. I got frustrated and reached for a Hershey''s kiss, thinking, "I will taste this for only a quarter of a second but I''ll feel good during that time." Oh, and ***? Well, sleep was like gold to me. The frequency of *** greatly decreased because I really needed to sleep. THe quality was as good or better, though, so sleep deprivation didn''t affect normal functioning.

[num1babe]

Terrific show tonight on Sleep. However, I was disappointed that no resolution, resources, or websites were given to correct the problem.

CBS, can you do another show on what to do for those of us who are sleep deprived?

[tomcalwriter]

There was one aspect on these studies that would seem obvious to explore further, if indeed it has not. That is the role of deep sleep. Relative to the rest of our sleep, what if we were able to increase the amount of deep sleep we get, would that decrease the amount of total sleep that we need?

[qsleep]

This isn''t exactly new or novel, as the report suggested. As early as 1969, Kuhn discovered the metabolic consequences of sleep loss, essentially beating Dr. Van Cauter by some 40 years.

[soissa]

Can we theoretically conclude that sleep deprivation may also be contributing to the high rate of infertility? Sounds physiologically possible.

[sleepy22221]

Every knows that lack of sleep affects us, maybe not to the technical degree detailed but the question is.... HOW DO WE GET MORE SLEEP. WE ALL WOULD LIKE TO GET A GOOD NIGHTS SLEEP.

[kozy138]

Stresses of everyday living causing a lack of sleep may be a reason that African Americans develope diabetes more than others.

[skeezix06]

So after all these years of being told over and over and over again by the MEDIA (hello?) into trying to get less sleep so that we can be more productive than the nation across the street or down the road and avoid being called lazy we now find out that the entire premise is wrong.

And what are we going to do about it? I predict pretty much nothing. Employers, family responsibilities, and all the modern notions about how we should all live will make this study forgotten quickly.