Earlier this year, the health news world was rocked by a study suggesting that the longer people sleep each night, the sooner they drift into--to quote Raymond Chandler's clinical definition--"the big sleep." Immediately, sleep experts attacked this you-snooze-you-lose-lifespan theory, which flies in the face of accepted medical knowledge. In The Sleep Famine, an episode of the Canadian-produced The Nature of Things, hosted by David Suzuki, experts such as Dr. Harvey Moldofsky and Dr. Charles Czeisler argue that less is not more, and that our contemporary 24/7 society is anathema to the sleeping/waking cycle that is at the core of human existence (which is precisely what I said to my wife who wakes at 5:00 a.m. to go to work at the library, while I--being more health conscious--trundle my buns out of bed at about 8:59 a.m…if I'm feeling particularly perky). Combining statistics (approximately 70 million people suffer from sleep disorders in North America), interview clips, and peeks at studies involving astronauts, truckers, and teenagers, this somewhat repetitious documentary underscores the fact that both the ability to make good decisions and performance levels in general deteriorate with sleep deprivation. Ultimately, however, the self-evident case studies (yes, truckers do get tired after long uninterrupted driving; yes, teenagers are very tired during morning classes; etc.) tell us very little beyond common sense, and while this is not a "how-to" by any means, the question "where can we turn for help?"--raised and insufficiently answered about two minutes before the end credits roll--only serves to remind us that this is not really fulfilling in either an epistemological or utilitarian sense (sorry about the--adjusted for inflation--forty-five cent words, but I only got nine hours of sleep last night). Optional. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
The Sleep Famine: The Effects of Sleep Deprivation and Chronic Fatigue
(2000) 54 min. $129. Films for the Humanities & Sciences. PPR. Color cover. ISBN: 0-7365-3089-4. Volume 17, Issue 3
The Sleep Famine: The Effects of Sleep Deprivation and Chronic Fatigue
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