Sleep and Work

Managers urged to address workers' sleep issues.
In a USA Today (4/21, Mednick) forum article, Sara Mednick, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, notes the suspension of the seventh US air traffic controller this year, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's description of the incidents as "absolutely unacceptable." Mednick says, "But truth be told, working 24/7 is what got us into this mess in the first place." America has "been taking sleep for granted far too long," and "although sleep researchers, such as myself, and the news media have been alerting us to the importance of sleep for awhile, it appears the people in charge have been slow make the necessary changes to the way we work during the hours when we are most vulnerable to sleepiness."
In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times (4/21) says in response to the reports of air traffic controllers sleeping on the job, "the FAA has adjusted controllers' schedules and mandated that additional controllers be assigned during sleepy midnight shifts." Of course, "they're not the only workers who get so fatigued that they fall asleep on the job." A sleep study "cited in the New York Times on Sunday says the overwhelming majority of people need eight hours of sleep," and "most of those who get less and think they're operating fine on it turn out to be too sleep-deprived to realize how sleep-deprived they are."