Are we chronically sleep deprived?

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. © 1975, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.