What Too Little Sleep Does To Your Body
Still Fighting for the Eight-Hour Workday
Flat wages have been pushing American workers backward for decades, but Minneapolis Local 292 member Kent Blachowiak’s employer was trying to push him all the way back to the 19th century.
Blachowiak is the shop steward for the more than 80 members of Local 292 working for FMS, a metal components manufacturer. When their contract expired near the end of last year, the company’s first offer went after one of the foundational achievements of the labor movement: the eight-hour workday.
“They wanted 12-hour days, no overtime,” said Local 292 Business Manager Rodger Kretman. “It wasn’t even clear if they wanted three 12-hour days a week or four, or how it would work at all. They just wanted it and they wouldn’t budge.”
After two months of fruitless negotiations, they entered federal mediation. A week into mediation, the company added language that would have prevented union representatives from entering the plant. Talks continued for two more months, with no movement, until early February when the membership unanimously rejected the company’s offer.
The entire bargaining unit stood together, but Kretman said the FMS workers struggle brought the entire local together. At the monthly general membership meeting March 11, Kretman asked the inside wiremen, low-voltage, manufacturing and broadcast workers that make up Local 292 to call and email the company to express their concern and then pass the story on.
A button supporting the eight-hour workday from the original struggle more than 100 years ago.
(Photo Courtesy the University of Maryland Libraries)
“From what I hear, their phones were ringing off the hook,” Kretman said. “Two days of calling and they buckled.”
On March 13, the company capitulated on nearly every one of their initial demands and members approved a two-year contract, with 2.75-percent annual raises, eight-hour days and continued access to the membership.
‘Eight Hours is an Accomplishment on this Job’
IBEW members have been working at FMS since the 1950s, when it was a neon-sign manufacturer. Today FMS is a specialist in producing complex metal components for a variety of industries including off-road vehicles and medical and industrial equipment.
Unlike foundries that cast or forge components from molten metal or machine shops that carve parts out of solid metal ingots, FMS uses precise mixtures of metal powder that are molded and then compressed by hydraulic rams that create hundreds of tons of pressure. The components are hardened in room-length furnaces that are hot enough to bond the metals without melting or deforming the parts.
“It is a very challenging place to work. These are dangerous machines and it is noisy and hot,” said Peter Lindahl, the Local 292 business representative responsible for FMS. “Eight hours is an accomplishment on this job; to go 12 hours was not something the membership wanted for themselves or for future employees.”
Making conditions even tougher has been the contentious relationship with management.
In the four plus years since Lindahl became the business representative for many of the broadcast, inside and manufacturing members, he has negotiated three two-year contracts with FMS and two have gone to mediation.
In 2009, plant management exploited the perception that union leadership was more concerned with its nearly 3,000 inside members – more than half of the local-- than they were about the largely immigrant factory workers.
Kretman said demonstrating to the FMS workers that all members are equal was a high priority from the moment he became business manager in 2011.
“My thought was, whether they come from Asia, Central America or right around the corner, I was sure they felt like they didn’t have a voice on the job, and I wanted to make sure they did,” he said. “It was clear they needed our representation in a bad way.”
Kretman said since Blachowiak became shop steward in 2010 he and Lindahl built a communication system among the workers that has transformed them into a force the company has to respect. The local has filed more grievances on the workers behalf – two had to be arbitrated -- and Lindahl became a constant presence at FMS.
Unfortunately, Kretman said, the company did not see the unified, active union workforce as a pathway to improved operation, as the many manufacturers who participate in the IBEW’s Code of Excellence program do. FMS went another way.
“They saw us getting stronger and it scared them,” he said.
Attacking the Eight-Hour Workday
One of the earliest rallying cries of the international labor movement was for shorter workdays. In the early days of the industrial revolution, 10- to 16- hour workdays, six days a week was the common lot of factory workers. Philadelphia carpenters went on strike in 1791 for the 10-hour day. President Ulysses S. Grant approved the eight-hour day for federal workers in 1868, but it wasn’t until 1914 that Henry Ford –no friend of organized labor-- became the first American factory owner to adopt the eight-hour day, which both improved workers’ lives and increased their productivity.
It wasn’t a victory that came cheaply. The most infamous event in the U.S. struggle came in 1886 in Chicago’s Haymarket Square during a peaceful demonstration by hundreds of striking workers calling for a shortened workday. A dynamite bomb was thrown at police moving in to break up the demonstration. The police began to fire into the crowd. According to eyewitness accounts, within five minutes the square was empty except for the bodies of seven policemen and four workers. Up to 60 more policeman and 70 workers were wounded.
Eight men were arrested and charged with murder and conspiracy. The trials were an embarrassment: the working class was excluded from the jury, the evidence was weak and the judge was hostile. The widely criticized trials sent four activists to the gallows -- a fifth committed suicide the night before his execution. The bomber was never found.
The Local 292 members at FMS may not have known this history, but they were clear and united, Kretman said.
The negotiating committee --Lindahl, Blachowiak, John Pregler and Business Representative Dan Ferguson-- had been updating the membership so when the company’s last, best offer arrived Feb. 6, including the 12-hour day proposal, Lindahl said the FMS workers knew what was coming. A week later, there was a two-day membership vote to give every shift a chance to be heard. The negotiating committee and Jose Seals, a Local 292 member fluent in Spanish and English, remained on site during the vote to explain the stakes.
Out of the 82-member bargaining unit, 75 voted, and every vote rejected the contract. At the same time, a vote to authorize action against the company, up to a two-day strike was approved 67 to 2.
Lindahl said that rejecting the 12-hour day was critical, but keeping access to the workplace was no less of a win.
“Being able to talk with them and see what their issues are in a single place is convenient and important, but just as important is that we can see if they are safe. We’re not there to disrupt anything but we need to know that the working conditions are as we agreed,” Lindahl said.
The first action came the next day, payday. Virtually every member wore a red IBEW T-shirt as managers walked the factory floor handing out paychecks.
“They saw every one of those shirts and had to look every one of our members in the eye and hand them a check. They had to see the determination,” Lindahl said.
That is when Kretman appealed to the membership of Local 292 and the calls and emails began pouring in. It seems the company got the point. They signed a tentative agreement within weeks and the membership overwhelmingly approved it March 20 and 21.
“They proved that every member of the IBEW is a full member and an injury to one is an injury to us all,” Kretman said. “Because members inside the building stood together with the support of their brothers and sisters off the factory floor, the deal was done.”
Lindahl said that now that the contract is signed, he hopes that the company’s management will drop its effort to destroy the union and begin to work with them.
“We want the company to succeed, and we can help, if they stop fighting us every step of the way,” he said. “These are good people who work here and the company could do so much better if they started treating them like they are the solution, not the problem.”
Blachowiak is the shop steward for the more than 80 members of Local 292 working for FMS, a metal components manufacturer. When their contract expired near the end of last year, the company’s first offer went after one of the foundational achievements of the labor movement: the eight-hour workday.
“They wanted 12-hour days, no overtime,” said Local 292 Business Manager Rodger Kretman. “It wasn’t even clear if they wanted three 12-hour days a week or four, or how it would work at all. They just wanted it and they wouldn’t budge.”
After two months of fruitless negotiations, they entered federal mediation. A week into mediation, the company added language that would have prevented union representatives from entering the plant. Talks continued for two more months, with no movement, until early February when the membership unanimously rejected the company’s offer.
The entire bargaining unit stood together, but Kretman said the FMS workers struggle brought the entire local together. At the monthly general membership meeting March 11, Kretman asked the inside wiremen, low-voltage, manufacturing and broadcast workers that make up Local 292 to call and email the company to express their concern and then pass the story on.
A button supporting the eight-hour workday from the original struggle more than 100 years ago.
(Photo Courtesy the University of Maryland Libraries)
“From what I hear, their phones were ringing off the hook,” Kretman said. “Two days of calling and they buckled.”
On March 13, the company capitulated on nearly every one of their initial demands and members approved a two-year contract, with 2.75-percent annual raises, eight-hour days and continued access to the membership.
‘Eight Hours is an Accomplishment on this Job’
IBEW members have been working at FMS since the 1950s, when it was a neon-sign manufacturer. Today FMS is a specialist in producing complex metal components for a variety of industries including off-road vehicles and medical and industrial equipment.
Unlike foundries that cast or forge components from molten metal or machine shops that carve parts out of solid metal ingots, FMS uses precise mixtures of metal powder that are molded and then compressed by hydraulic rams that create hundreds of tons of pressure. The components are hardened in room-length furnaces that are hot enough to bond the metals without melting or deforming the parts.
“It is a very challenging place to work. These are dangerous machines and it is noisy and hot,” said Peter Lindahl, the Local 292 business representative responsible for FMS. “Eight hours is an accomplishment on this job; to go 12 hours was not something the membership wanted for themselves or for future employees.”
Making conditions even tougher has been the contentious relationship with management.
In the four plus years since Lindahl became the business representative for many of the broadcast, inside and manufacturing members, he has negotiated three two-year contracts with FMS and two have gone to mediation.
In 2009, plant management exploited the perception that union leadership was more concerned with its nearly 3,000 inside members – more than half of the local-- than they were about the largely immigrant factory workers.
Kretman said demonstrating to the FMS workers that all members are equal was a high priority from the moment he became business manager in 2011.
“My thought was, whether they come from Asia, Central America or right around the corner, I was sure they felt like they didn’t have a voice on the job, and I wanted to make sure they did,” he said. “It was clear they needed our representation in a bad way.”
Kretman said since Blachowiak became shop steward in 2010 he and Lindahl built a communication system among the workers that has transformed them into a force the company has to respect. The local has filed more grievances on the workers behalf – two had to be arbitrated -- and Lindahl became a constant presence at FMS.
Unfortunately, Kretman said, the company did not see the unified, active union workforce as a pathway to improved operation, as the many manufacturers who participate in the IBEW’s Code of Excellence program do. FMS went another way.
“They saw us getting stronger and it scared them,” he said.
Attacking the Eight-Hour Workday
One of the earliest rallying cries of the international labor movement was for shorter workdays. In the early days of the industrial revolution, 10- to 16- hour workdays, six days a week was the common lot of factory workers. Philadelphia carpenters went on strike in 1791 for the 10-hour day. President Ulysses S. Grant approved the eight-hour day for federal workers in 1868, but it wasn’t until 1914 that Henry Ford –no friend of organized labor-- became the first American factory owner to adopt the eight-hour day, which both improved workers’ lives and increased their productivity.
It wasn’t a victory that came cheaply. The most infamous event in the U.S. struggle came in 1886 in Chicago’s Haymarket Square during a peaceful demonstration by hundreds of striking workers calling for a shortened workday. A dynamite bomb was thrown at police moving in to break up the demonstration. The police began to fire into the crowd. According to eyewitness accounts, within five minutes the square was empty except for the bodies of seven policemen and four workers. Up to 60 more policeman and 70 workers were wounded.
Eight men were arrested and charged with murder and conspiracy. The trials were an embarrassment: the working class was excluded from the jury, the evidence was weak and the judge was hostile. The widely criticized trials sent four activists to the gallows -- a fifth committed suicide the night before his execution. The bomber was never found.
The Local 292 members at FMS may not have known this history, but they were clear and united, Kretman said.
The negotiating committee --Lindahl, Blachowiak, John Pregler and Business Representative Dan Ferguson-- had been updating the membership so when the company’s last, best offer arrived Feb. 6, including the 12-hour day proposal, Lindahl said the FMS workers knew what was coming. A week later, there was a two-day membership vote to give every shift a chance to be heard. The negotiating committee and Jose Seals, a Local 292 member fluent in Spanish and English, remained on site during the vote to explain the stakes.
Out of the 82-member bargaining unit, 75 voted, and every vote rejected the contract. At the same time, a vote to authorize action against the company, up to a two-day strike was approved 67 to 2.
Lindahl said that rejecting the 12-hour day was critical, but keeping access to the workplace was no less of a win.
“Being able to talk with them and see what their issues are in a single place is convenient and important, but just as important is that we can see if they are safe. We’re not there to disrupt anything but we need to know that the working conditions are as we agreed,” Lindahl said.
The first action came the next day, payday. Virtually every member wore a red IBEW T-shirt as managers walked the factory floor handing out paychecks.
“They saw every one of those shirts and had to look every one of our members in the eye and hand them a check. They had to see the determination,” Lindahl said.
That is when Kretman appealed to the membership of Local 292 and the calls and emails began pouring in. It seems the company got the point. They signed a tentative agreement within weeks and the membership overwhelmingly approved it March 20 and 21.
“They proved that every member of the IBEW is a full member and an injury to one is an injury to us all,” Kretman said. “Because members inside the building stood together with the support of their brothers and sisters off the factory floor, the deal was done.”
Lindahl said that now that the contract is signed, he hopes that the company’s management will drop its effort to destroy the union and begin to work with them.
“We want the company to succeed, and we can help, if they stop fighting us every step of the way,” he said. “These are good people who work here and the company could do so much better if they started treating them like they are the solution, not the problem.”
By Andrea Downing Peck
DRUNKEN DRIVING and distracted driving grab headlines, but drowsy driving is potentially an equally lethal combination. More than one in five fatal crashes involve driver fatigue, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
“It’s clearly an under appreciated problem,” says Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance president Ken Ciak. “The media does a great job highlighting the dangers of drinking and driving, or, lately, texting and driving, but drowsy driving doesn’t get the same attention; therefore, people don’t understand the warning signs or potential repercussions.” READ the whole article
DRUNKEN DRIVING and distracted driving grab headlines, but drowsy driving is potentially an equally lethal combination. More than one in five fatal crashes involve driver fatigue, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
“It’s clearly an under appreciated problem,” says Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance president Ken Ciak. “The media does a great job highlighting the dangers of drinking and driving, or, lately, texting and driving, but drowsy driving doesn’t get the same attention; therefore, people don’t understand the warning signs or potential repercussions.” READ the whole article
Sleeping is one of the most important things we can do for our health
Research shows that not getting shut-eye makes us gain weight, shortens lifespan, and raises the risk of cancer, depression, heart disease, digestive disorders, and diabetes.Lack of sleep is one of the most intractable health problems facing this country. About half of Americans who are middle-aged or older complain of chronic sleep problems, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
READ the whole article from Health Radar
READ the whole article from Health Radar
Time To Go Home
Long Hours Put the Squeeze on Workers and Their Families
By Miriam Schulman
What impact do such long workweeks have on families and, through them, on the common good?
The Overworked American
Before addressing these questions, it might be well to establish the dimensions of the problem. Schor begins her book with this sobering sentence: "In the last 20 years, the amount of time Americans have spent at their jobs has risen steadily." According to her calculations, the average worker is now on the job about one month longer per year than his or her 1969 counterpart.
READ the whole article
By Miriam Schulman
What impact do such long workweeks have on families and, through them, on the common good?
The Overworked American
Before addressing these questions, it might be well to establish the dimensions of the problem. Schor begins her book with this sobering sentence: "In the last 20 years, the amount of time Americans have spent at their jobs has risen steadily." According to her calculations, the average worker is now on the job about one month longer per year than his or her 1969 counterpart.
READ the whole article
Could shift work cause your brain to grow older faster?
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, millions of people around the world have had jobs that require them to work shifts that cross night and day and change on a weekly or even daily basis. Scientists have long theorized that working irregular hours for extended periods of time could have the same detrimental effect as chronic jet lag, disrupting the body's natural time-keeping rhythms and exacerbating health problems such as ulcers and weight gain.
Now a new study, published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, quantifies that effect on the brain's ability to think and remember. The researchers found that those who have worked shifts for more than 10 years experienced a decline in cognitive function equivalent to 6.5 years of aging.
The researchers, from several leading European universities including the Universite de Toulouse in France, studied 3,232 workers and gave them tests of speed and memory on three occasions. The workers were 32, 42, 52 and 62 when they were first tested and were seen again five and 10 years later. About 20 percent of those studied said they worked shifts that rotated between morning, afternoon and evening.
The researchers wrote that the findings have "important safety consequences not only for the individuals concerned, but also for society as a whole." That's especially important in the United States, where nearly 15 million Americans work full time on night shifts or irregular schedules. Americans also tend to work more hours than their counterparts in other developed countries. In a 2003 report, the International Labor Office found that work hours in the United States were greater than those in Japan and most of western Europe.
There was some hopeful news in the findings of the shift-work study. The aging effects on the brain appear to be reversible, although there doesn't seem to be a quick fix. Those who left shift work for at least five years, the researchers found, had improved cognitive function.
Ariana Eunjung Cha is a national reporter for the Post. She has previously served as the newspaper’s bureau chief in Beijing, Shanghai and San Francisco, a correspondent in Baghdad and as a tech reporter based in Washington.
The Power of Sleep
Alice Park @aliceparkny Sept. 11, 2014
New research shows a good night's rest isn't a luxury--it's critical for your brain and for your health
When our heads hit the pillow every night, we tend to think we’re surrendering. Not just to exhaustion, though there is that. We’re also surrendering our mind, taking leave of our focus on sensory cues, like noise and smell and blinking lights. It’s as if we’re powering ourselves down like we do the electronics at our bedside–going idle for a while, only to spring back into action when the alarm blasts hours later.
That’s what we think is happening. But as scientists are now revealing, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, when the lights go out, our brains start working–but in an altogether different way than when we’re awake. At night, a legion of neurons springs into action, and like any well-trained platoon, the cells work in perfect synchrony, pulsing with electrical signals that wash over the brain with a soothing, hypnotic flow. Meanwhile, data processors sort through the reams of information that flooded the brain all day at a pace too overwhelming to handle in real time. The brain also runs checks on itself to ensure that the exquisite balance of hormones, enzymes and proteins isn’t too far off-kilter. And all the while, cleaners follow in close pursuit to sweep out the toxic detritus that the brain doesn’t need and which can cause all kinds of problems if it builds up.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Alice Park @aliceparkny Sept. 11, 2014
New research shows a good night's rest isn't a luxury--it's critical for your brain and for your health
When our heads hit the pillow every night, we tend to think we’re surrendering. Not just to exhaustion, though there is that. We’re also surrendering our mind, taking leave of our focus on sensory cues, like noise and smell and blinking lights. It’s as if we’re powering ourselves down like we do the electronics at our bedside–going idle for a while, only to spring back into action when the alarm blasts hours later.
That’s what we think is happening. But as scientists are now revealing, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, when the lights go out, our brains start working–but in an altogether different way than when we’re awake. At night, a legion of neurons springs into action, and like any well-trained platoon, the cells work in perfect synchrony, pulsing with electrical signals that wash over the brain with a soothing, hypnotic flow. Meanwhile, data processors sort through the reams of information that flooded the brain all day at a pace too overwhelming to handle in real time. The brain also runs checks on itself to ensure that the exquisite balance of hormones, enzymes and proteins isn’t too far off-kilter. And all the while, cleaners follow in close pursuit to sweep out the toxic detritus that the brain doesn’t need and which can cause all kinds of problems if it builds up.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE
The Frightening Connection Between Lack Of Sleep And A Shrinking Brain
from Huffington Post Healthy Living
Anna Almendrala
While all of our brains get smaller as we get older, a startling new study shows that the amount of sleep we get -- or the lack thereof -- could affect how fast they shrink, particularly in people over 60 years old.
“We found that sleep difficulties (for example, trouble falling asleep, waking up during the night, or waking up too early) were associated with an increased rate of decline in brain volume over 3 [to] 5 years,” lead researcher Claire Sexton, DPhil, with the University of Oxford, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "Many factors have previously been linked with the rate of change in brain volume over time -- including physical activity, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Our study indicates that sleep is also an important factor."
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, is an associative one, which means it doesn’t show whether sleep causes rapid brain shrinkage or if a rapidly shrinking brain results in poorer sleep. Still, Sexton said future research based on her findings could encourage people to take their sleep schedule more seriously.
"In [the] future, we would like to investigate whether improving sleep can help slow decline in brain volume," wrote Sexton. "If so, this could be an important way to improve brain health."
For the study, Sexton evaluated 147 adults between 20 and 84 years old. They all underwent two MRI brain scans an average of 3.5 years apart. They also answered a survey about their sleep quality.
Among the participants, 35 percent had poor sleep quality (which considers factors like how long it takes to fall asleep at night or sleeping pill use, among other things). Sexton found that their brain scans showed a more rapid decrease in the frontal, temporal and parietal parts of the brain.
The frontal lobe regulates decision-making, emotions and movement, while the parietal lobe is where letters and words combine into thoughts, according to the National Institutes of Health. Meanwhile, the temporal lobe is associated with memory and learning.
Sexton's research echoes other recent studies on sleep and the aging brain. A study from a group of scientists from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore was published last July that found people who slept fewer hours had brains that aged faster than the controls (in this study, it was demonstrated with brain ventricle enlargement, which is a marker for cognitive decline). Another study, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in New York, found that the decline of a certain cluster of neurons was associated with higher rates of disrupted sleep in adults over 65. The effect was even more pronounced in study participants with Alzheimer's disease.
Louis Ptacek, M.D., a neurology professor and sleep expert at UC San Francisco, praised Sexton’s “reasonable” and “sound” study for controlling for factors like BMI and physical activity, which are known to affect sleep habits. But he also said the study’s findings, while interesting, are not surprising.
"We know, for example, that in many neurodegenerative diseases, you get all kinds of sleep problems,” Ptacek told HuffPost. "It’s not 100 percent uniform, but we know that Alzheimer’s patients, dementia patients and Parkinson’s patients all have different kinds of sleep phenotypes.”
It's not surprising that bad sleep is associated with decreased size or increased atrophy in different parts of the brain -- "in fact, I would have predicted that," Ptacek said. "But of course, these investigators did the study and proved it."
Ptacek hopes that as more research on the importance of sleep emerges, the public will begin to prioritize sleep seriously as another aspect of health, as opposed to thinking of it as an inconvenience or something to shortchange. We still have a long way to go, both in recognizing how vital sleep is to well-being and in funding more research on the mechanisms of sleep, he said.
“We all spend a third of our lives doing it, and yet, the understanding of the importance of good quality sleep to our health is sort of where tobacco and smoking was 40 years ago,” said Ptacek. " We know almost nothing about sleep at a basic mechanistic level: What is sleep really, and why do we do it?”
Even in 2014, "no one has any idea about the answers to these questions," he said.
from Huffington Post Healthy Living
Anna Almendrala
While all of our brains get smaller as we get older, a startling new study shows that the amount of sleep we get -- or the lack thereof -- could affect how fast they shrink, particularly in people over 60 years old.
“We found that sleep difficulties (for example, trouble falling asleep, waking up during the night, or waking up too early) were associated with an increased rate of decline in brain volume over 3 [to] 5 years,” lead researcher Claire Sexton, DPhil, with the University of Oxford, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "Many factors have previously been linked with the rate of change in brain volume over time -- including physical activity, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Our study indicates that sleep is also an important factor."
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, is an associative one, which means it doesn’t show whether sleep causes rapid brain shrinkage or if a rapidly shrinking brain results in poorer sleep. Still, Sexton said future research based on her findings could encourage people to take their sleep schedule more seriously.
"In [the] future, we would like to investigate whether improving sleep can help slow decline in brain volume," wrote Sexton. "If so, this could be an important way to improve brain health."
For the study, Sexton evaluated 147 adults between 20 and 84 years old. They all underwent two MRI brain scans an average of 3.5 years apart. They also answered a survey about their sleep quality.
Among the participants, 35 percent had poor sleep quality (which considers factors like how long it takes to fall asleep at night or sleeping pill use, among other things). Sexton found that their brain scans showed a more rapid decrease in the frontal, temporal and parietal parts of the brain.
The frontal lobe regulates decision-making, emotions and movement, while the parietal lobe is where letters and words combine into thoughts, according to the National Institutes of Health. Meanwhile, the temporal lobe is associated with memory and learning.
Sexton's research echoes other recent studies on sleep and the aging brain. A study from a group of scientists from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore was published last July that found people who slept fewer hours had brains that aged faster than the controls (in this study, it was demonstrated with brain ventricle enlargement, which is a marker for cognitive decline). Another study, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in New York, found that the decline of a certain cluster of neurons was associated with higher rates of disrupted sleep in adults over 65. The effect was even more pronounced in study participants with Alzheimer's disease.
Louis Ptacek, M.D., a neurology professor and sleep expert at UC San Francisco, praised Sexton’s “reasonable” and “sound” study for controlling for factors like BMI and physical activity, which are known to affect sleep habits. But he also said the study’s findings, while interesting, are not surprising.
"We know, for example, that in many neurodegenerative diseases, you get all kinds of sleep problems,” Ptacek told HuffPost. "It’s not 100 percent uniform, but we know that Alzheimer’s patients, dementia patients and Parkinson’s patients all have different kinds of sleep phenotypes.”
It's not surprising that bad sleep is associated with decreased size or increased atrophy in different parts of the brain -- "in fact, I would have predicted that," Ptacek said. "But of course, these investigators did the study and proved it."
Ptacek hopes that as more research on the importance of sleep emerges, the public will begin to prioritize sleep seriously as another aspect of health, as opposed to thinking of it as an inconvenience or something to shortchange. We still have a long way to go, both in recognizing how vital sleep is to well-being and in funding more research on the mechanisms of sleep, he said.
“We all spend a third of our lives doing it, and yet, the understanding of the importance of good quality sleep to our health is sort of where tobacco and smoking was 40 years ago,” said Ptacek. " We know almost nothing about sleep at a basic mechanistic level: What is sleep really, and why do we do it?”
Even in 2014, "no one has any idea about the answers to these questions," he said.
The Sleeper Public Health Issue of Our Time
Arianna Huffington
The Huffington Post
This month has brought ample evidence of the power of sleep to affect us in both positive and negative ways, and demonstrated why we need to start treating sleep as the vital health, safety and social issue that it is. I've been evangelizing about the upside of downtime for many years, but it seems like every week brings yet more evidence.
For instance, research teams from the U.S. and China have discovered some of the ways in which sleep consolidates memory and learning. In the study, the scientists were able to actually see new connections being formed while we (or in this case, mice) sleep. The study also found that getting more sleep led to higher performance than training more and sleeping less. "So it is probably better to study and have good sleep rather than keep studying," NYU professor Wen-Biao Gan, one of the researchers, told the BBC.
Then there is the growing awareness of the importance of sleep for workplace performance. The Daily Mail reports that earlier this month Vincent Walsh, professor of human brain research at University College London, said that not only should employers permit their employees to nap at work, but workers should be able to work whichever hours are best for them. "If we want people to be more creative we need people to be able to do less," he said. "Companies should allow naps in the afternoon. They should get rid of the habit of clocking in and clocking out."
Given what we know about how sleep affects virtually every aspect of cognitive performance, physical performance and creativity, this makes complete sense. Good employers give their employees the tools they need to do their jobs. They provide computers, desks, bathroom, air conditioning, Internet service and phones. Why not also provide the flexibility and encouragement for employees to make optimal use of their most powerful tools: their minds, their energy and their creativity?
At The Huffington Post we have two nap rooms, and I'm happy to say that they're almost always booked. And more and more companies are realizing that what's best for the health of their employees is also what's best for their bottom line. In the U.S. around 35 percent of large and midsize companies offer stress-reduction programs of some kind, while in the UK even the Bank of England is now offering meditation classes.
We've also recently seen the negative -- in this case tragic -- impact of the lack of sleep with the news that the Walmart truck driver who crashed into the limo carrying comedian Tracy Morgan and several others may have gone over 24 hours without sleep at the time of the accident, which killed one and critically injured three, including Morgan.
Of course, we don't have all the facts surrounding the accident yet -- though the driver has been charged with one count of vehicular homicide -- but regardless of the particulars of this case, we do know that sleep is not given nearly the respect it deserves as a society-wide safety issue. The numbers are staggering:
According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, lack of sleep causes an estimated 100,000 crashes per year, just in America. This results in 40,000 injuries and over 1,500 deaths.
The Liberty Mutual Research Institute estimates that 250,000 Americans drive while sleep-deprived every single day.
Accidents due to sleep deprivation cost the U.S. an estimated $43 billion to $56 billion.
Men are nearly twice as likely as women to doze off while behind the wheel. This makes sense, since the macho culture that wrongly equates sleep deprivation with effectiveness and dedication was largely created by men.
The Department of Transportation has reported that there is a high likelihood that all combination-unit trucks will be involved in one sleep-related crash during the lifetime of the vehicle.
Enormous progress has been made in combating drunk driving -- going from nearly 16,000 killed in the U.S. in 1991 to just over 10,000 in 2012. And yet there's been comparatively little outcry about driving while drowsy. But, in fact, the effects are very similar. A study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that going just 17 t0 19 hours without sleep (a normal day for many of us) can produce levels of cognitive impairment equivalent to a blood-alcohol level of .05 percent, just under the legal limit in many U.S. states. A few hours more and you're up to the equivalent of .1 percent -- over the limit.
This translates to hundreds of millions of people worldwide essentially driving drunk every day. But since there's no test for drowsiness, it's all the more important to change the perception of going without sleep. Instead of being celebrated and bragged about, it should be discouraged in the workplace and considered deadly on the road.
The science is in on the powerful benefits sleep can give us, as are the grim statistics on the deadly consequences of believing we can get by without it. "We are the supremely arrogant species," Russell Foster, a professor at Oxford, told the BBC last month. "What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems."
It's time to put to bed the idea that sleep is a "nice to have," or even "nonessential" for some people, recognize that it's an "absolute need to have" and wake up to the central role it plays in all our lives.
Arianna Huffington
The Huffington Post
This month has brought ample evidence of the power of sleep to affect us in both positive and negative ways, and demonstrated why we need to start treating sleep as the vital health, safety and social issue that it is. I've been evangelizing about the upside of downtime for many years, but it seems like every week brings yet more evidence.
For instance, research teams from the U.S. and China have discovered some of the ways in which sleep consolidates memory and learning. In the study, the scientists were able to actually see new connections being formed while we (or in this case, mice) sleep. The study also found that getting more sleep led to higher performance than training more and sleeping less. "So it is probably better to study and have good sleep rather than keep studying," NYU professor Wen-Biao Gan, one of the researchers, told the BBC.
Then there is the growing awareness of the importance of sleep for workplace performance. The Daily Mail reports that earlier this month Vincent Walsh, professor of human brain research at University College London, said that not only should employers permit their employees to nap at work, but workers should be able to work whichever hours are best for them. "If we want people to be more creative we need people to be able to do less," he said. "Companies should allow naps in the afternoon. They should get rid of the habit of clocking in and clocking out."
Given what we know about how sleep affects virtually every aspect of cognitive performance, physical performance and creativity, this makes complete sense. Good employers give their employees the tools they need to do their jobs. They provide computers, desks, bathroom, air conditioning, Internet service and phones. Why not also provide the flexibility and encouragement for employees to make optimal use of their most powerful tools: their minds, their energy and their creativity?
At The Huffington Post we have two nap rooms, and I'm happy to say that they're almost always booked. And more and more companies are realizing that what's best for the health of their employees is also what's best for their bottom line. In the U.S. around 35 percent of large and midsize companies offer stress-reduction programs of some kind, while in the UK even the Bank of England is now offering meditation classes.
We've also recently seen the negative -- in this case tragic -- impact of the lack of sleep with the news that the Walmart truck driver who crashed into the limo carrying comedian Tracy Morgan and several others may have gone over 24 hours without sleep at the time of the accident, which killed one and critically injured three, including Morgan.
Of course, we don't have all the facts surrounding the accident yet -- though the driver has been charged with one count of vehicular homicide -- but regardless of the particulars of this case, we do know that sleep is not given nearly the respect it deserves as a society-wide safety issue. The numbers are staggering:
According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, lack of sleep causes an estimated 100,000 crashes per year, just in America. This results in 40,000 injuries and over 1,500 deaths.
The Liberty Mutual Research Institute estimates that 250,000 Americans drive while sleep-deprived every single day.
Accidents due to sleep deprivation cost the U.S. an estimated $43 billion to $56 billion.
Men are nearly twice as likely as women to doze off while behind the wheel. This makes sense, since the macho culture that wrongly equates sleep deprivation with effectiveness and dedication was largely created by men.
The Department of Transportation has reported that there is a high likelihood that all combination-unit trucks will be involved in one sleep-related crash during the lifetime of the vehicle.
Enormous progress has been made in combating drunk driving -- going from nearly 16,000 killed in the U.S. in 1991 to just over 10,000 in 2012. And yet there's been comparatively little outcry about driving while drowsy. But, in fact, the effects are very similar. A study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that going just 17 t0 19 hours without sleep (a normal day for many of us) can produce levels of cognitive impairment equivalent to a blood-alcohol level of .05 percent, just under the legal limit in many U.S. states. A few hours more and you're up to the equivalent of .1 percent -- over the limit.
This translates to hundreds of millions of people worldwide essentially driving drunk every day. But since there's no test for drowsiness, it's all the more important to change the perception of going without sleep. Instead of being celebrated and bragged about, it should be discouraged in the workplace and considered deadly on the road.
The science is in on the powerful benefits sleep can give us, as are the grim statistics on the deadly consequences of believing we can get by without it. "We are the supremely arrogant species," Russell Foster, a professor at Oxford, told the BBC last month. "What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems."
It's time to put to bed the idea that sleep is a "nice to have," or even "nonessential" for some people, recognize that it's an "absolute need to have" and wake up to the central role it plays in all our lives.
Research is now uncovering how living life against the clock is damaging our health
By James GallagherHealth and science reporter, BBC News
Society has become "supremely arrogant" in ignoring the importance of sleep, leading researchers have told the BBC's Day of the Body Clock.
Scientists from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Manchester and Surrey universities warn cutting sleep is leading to "serious health problems".
They say people and governments need to take the problem seriously.
Cancer, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, infections and obesity have all been linked to reduced sleep.
The body clock drives huge changes in the human body.
It alters alertness, mood, physical strength and even the risk of a heart attack in a daily rhythm.
It stems from our evolutionary past when we were active in the day and resting at night.
But scientists have warned that modern life and 24-hour society mean many people are now "living against" their body clocks with damaging consequences for health and wellbeing.
Prof Russell Foster, at the University of Oxford, said people were getting between one and two hours less sleep a night than 60 years ago.
He said: "We are the supremely arrogant species; we feel we can abandon four billion years of evolution and ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle. "What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems."
He says this is an issue affecting the whole of society, not just shift workers. Prof Foster said that this was an acute problem in teenagers and he had met children who sleep by popping their parent's sleeping tablets in the evening and then downing three Red Bulls in the morning.
Emerging evidence suggests modern technology is now keeping us up later into the night and cutting sleep.
"Light is the most powerful synchroniser of your internal biological clock," Prof Charles Czeisler, from Harvard University, told the BBC Day of the Body Clock.
He said energy efficient light bulbs as well as smartphones, tablets and computers had high levels of light in the blue end of the spectrum which is "right in the sweet spot" for disrupting the body clock. "Light exposure, especially short wavelength blue-ish light in the evening, will reset our circadian rhythms to a later hour, postponing the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin and making it more difficult for us to get up in the morning.
"It's a big concern that we're being exposed to much more light, sleeping less and, as a consequence, may suffer from many chronic diseases."
Pioneering genetic research is now uncovering how living life against the clock is damaging our health.
About 10% of human DNA has a 24-hour pattern of activity, which is behind all the behavioural and physiological changes in the body.
But studies have shown rhythm can be disrupted by short sleep durations or shift work.
Dr Simon Archer, who conducted the studies at the University of Surrey, said there was a "large impact" on how the body ran.
"These are all fundamental biological pathways that can be underlying links to some of the negative health outcomes that we see such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and potentially cancer in people who don't get enough sleep or do shift work," he said.
Experiments show people can become pre-diabetic after a few weeks of shift work.
Call to actionDr Akhilesh Reddy, from the University of Cambridge, said the body clock influences every biological process in the human body and the health consequences of living against the clock were "pretty clear cut",particularly in breast cancer.
He said: "Try to live more rhythmically, in tune with the environment and not have too much bright light before bedtime because it will affect the clock and sleep."
Prof Andrew Loudon, from the University of Manchester, said: "The problems caused by living against the body clock may be less sexy than the countless 'this or that causes cancer stories' it is none-the-less a major problem for society."
"You might not notice any short-term changes in your health following circadian disruption, but over a long period of time, the consequences could be quite severe.
"Governments need to take this seriously, starting perhaps with reviewing the health consequences of shift work, and society and legislators needs to take this on board."
LINK to complete article from BBC News
Scientists from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Manchester and Surrey universities warn cutting sleep is leading to "serious health problems".
They say people and governments need to take the problem seriously.
Cancer, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, infections and obesity have all been linked to reduced sleep.
The body clock drives huge changes in the human body.
It alters alertness, mood, physical strength and even the risk of a heart attack in a daily rhythm.
It stems from our evolutionary past when we were active in the day and resting at night.
But scientists have warned that modern life and 24-hour society mean many people are now "living against" their body clocks with damaging consequences for health and wellbeing.
Prof Russell Foster, at the University of Oxford, said people were getting between one and two hours less sleep a night than 60 years ago.
He said: "We are the supremely arrogant species; we feel we can abandon four billion years of evolution and ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle. "What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems."
He says this is an issue affecting the whole of society, not just shift workers. Prof Foster said that this was an acute problem in teenagers and he had met children who sleep by popping their parent's sleeping tablets in the evening and then downing three Red Bulls in the morning.
Emerging evidence suggests modern technology is now keeping us up later into the night and cutting sleep.
"Light is the most powerful synchroniser of your internal biological clock," Prof Charles Czeisler, from Harvard University, told the BBC Day of the Body Clock.
He said energy efficient light bulbs as well as smartphones, tablets and computers had high levels of light in the blue end of the spectrum which is "right in the sweet spot" for disrupting the body clock. "Light exposure, especially short wavelength blue-ish light in the evening, will reset our circadian rhythms to a later hour, postponing the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin and making it more difficult for us to get up in the morning.
"It's a big concern that we're being exposed to much more light, sleeping less and, as a consequence, may suffer from many chronic diseases."
Pioneering genetic research is now uncovering how living life against the clock is damaging our health.
About 10% of human DNA has a 24-hour pattern of activity, which is behind all the behavioural and physiological changes in the body.
But studies have shown rhythm can be disrupted by short sleep durations or shift work.
Dr Simon Archer, who conducted the studies at the University of Surrey, said there was a "large impact" on how the body ran.
"These are all fundamental biological pathways that can be underlying links to some of the negative health outcomes that we see such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and potentially cancer in people who don't get enough sleep or do shift work," he said.
Experiments show people can become pre-diabetic after a few weeks of shift work.
Call to actionDr Akhilesh Reddy, from the University of Cambridge, said the body clock influences every biological process in the human body and the health consequences of living against the clock were "pretty clear cut",particularly in breast cancer.
He said: "Try to live more rhythmically, in tune with the environment and not have too much bright light before bedtime because it will affect the clock and sleep."
Prof Andrew Loudon, from the University of Manchester, said: "The problems caused by living against the body clock may be less sexy than the countless 'this or that causes cancer stories' it is none-the-less a major problem for society."
"You might not notice any short-term changes in your health following circadian disruption, but over a long period of time, the consequences could be quite severe.
"Governments need to take this seriously, starting perhaps with reviewing the health consequences of shift work, and society and legislators needs to take this on board."
LINK to complete article from BBC News
Sleep specialists could help stem nocturnal disasters
chicagotribune.com
By Cory Franklin
April 2, 2014
Ernest Hemingway once wrote that "the things of the night cannot be explained in the day." A litany of nocturnal disasters in recent history certainly supports his observation.
Consider the time of day in all of the following: At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear disaster in American history, a partial meltdown, began at Three Mile Island, Pa. An even worse nuclear accident, an explosion and radioactive fire, started at 1:20 a.m. on April 26, 1986, at Chernobyl in Ukraine. Shortly after midnight on March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska, releasing 10.8 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. And at 1:20 a.m. on Dec. 3, 1984, a toxic gas leak occurred at an industrial plant in Bhopal, India, killing thousands.
These are only the high-profile incidents; not included are the thousands of annual fatalities and nonfatal accidents — involving automobiles, trucks and trains — that happen at night where drowsiness or fatigue is cited as a primary or contributing factor.
The recent Blue Line crash at O'Hare International Airport also occurred in the middle of the night, shortly before 3 a.m. According to the preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the driver dozed off before the train entered the station. She told investigators she also dozed off in February, causing that train to overrun a stop.
Although the Blue Line investigation is still in its first stages, and an equipment malfunction or drug use have not been eliminated as factors, early facts suggest a likely cause was a driver with insufficient sleep, an erratic work schedule and a circadian rhythm disturbance (in which a person fights his or her internal body clock in an attempt to stay awake).
Before the 1980s, little attention was paid to sleep deprivation as a cause of traffic accidents. Even today, the magnitude of the problem is unclear because the relationship between sleep problems and accidents is plagued by inconsistent reporting and lack of uniform nationwide classification. But sleepiness, which causes inattention or fatigue, is a serious national issue, especially in the trucking and rail industries.
The sleep/wake cycle is a natural function of the human body and there are invariably costs in trying to override it, even by those trained to do so. Alertness, vigilance, reaction time and information-processing are likely to suffer, with inevitable consequences for whatever work is being performed. Night shift workers, and those working irregular shifts, must sometimes resort to the dangerous combination of taking sedatives to sleep during the day and stimulants to function at night. Even then, they may fall asleep during long-distance driving or when performing tedious, repetitive tasks.
The medical field came late to the realization of the importance of sleep and the brain's response to sleep deprivation. Sleep had been studied for decades, but the field of sleep medicine was deemed experimental and insurance claims were denied until the mid-1970s. The first training for doctors specifically in sleep medicine did not begin until the late 1980s. Now the field has grown, with sleep experts in nearly every major medical center. But there is still not enough interaction between sleep medicine and the essential 24-hour industries such as transportation, public safety and nuclear power.
When the CTA reviews corrective actions after the Blue Line accident, it should include hiring a sleep medicine consultant, or given the size of the organization, a team of sleep medicine consultants. They would serve to screen, monitor, diagnose and treat employees whose job performance may be impaired. This would be a preventive step in the same manner as improved braking systems, safer signals and speed barriers. The cost of hiring sleep consultants, even if they prevent only one accident, is far less than the costs of the lawsuits that predictably follow each crash.
In the wake of the spate of concussions in the NFL, teams have hired neurologists or neurosurgeons who are concussion specialists. Major League Baseball teams now employ dermatology consultants to screen players for sun-related skin cancers. The issue here is a matter of matching physician knowledge and skills with specific workplace hazards.
In discussing the CTA accident, a union representative was quoted as saying, "Come on. We've all dozed off driving a train (or a car).'' Precisely.That is why the CTA should address the workplace hazard of sleep deprivation by hiring sleep specialists. The eye-opening video of a Blue Line train crashing through a barrier and climbing an escalator at O'Hare in the middle of the night should serve as a wake-up call.
Polone: The Unglamorous, Punishing Hours of Working on a Hollywood Set
5/23/12
A week and a half ago we had an unusually long shooting day on the show I’m currently producing, Jane by Design. The crew call time was at 7 a.m. and we wrapped at 10:46 p.m. — fourteen hours and 45 minutes after subtracting our one-hour lunch break. And some had an even longer day: Our actors, including guest star Teri Hatcher, showed up for hair and makeup at 5 am, which meant that hairstylists and makeup artists, as well as someone from the transportation department and the set production assistant, also showed up to meet them and were there until wrap, giving them a total of sixteen hours and 45 minutes. Many of you who are less familiar with the culture of filmmaking may find these hours to be pretty crazy, but those of us who regularly work on sets know there was nothing out of the ordinary about this day — and it wasn't even that extreme compared to other movies and TV series, which often go beyond the standard schedule of a twelve-hour day.
These hours can be a bit grinding for me, but as a producer I have the latitude to show up later or leave earlier. Actors can have brutal days, but they also usually get days off, as most shows are ensembles and they’re rarely in every scene. And let’s face it, producers and actors are highly compensated for their work. However, the average below-the-line worker (the budgetary classification for those who aren’t producers, directors, actors, or writers) has to be there every day and make a middle-class wage. And, from my perspective, they are also the people who whine the least about this extreme schedule.
It has always been difficult for me to understand how so many in this business put up with such a punishing routine. So, as our work week wore on, I decided to interview some of the people around me about their feelings on the hours they work and how this regimen affects their lives.
:: continue reading ::
5/23/12
A week and a half ago we had an unusually long shooting day on the show I’m currently producing, Jane by Design. The crew call time was at 7 a.m. and we wrapped at 10:46 p.m. — fourteen hours and 45 minutes after subtracting our one-hour lunch break. And some had an even longer day: Our actors, including guest star Teri Hatcher, showed up for hair and makeup at 5 am, which meant that hairstylists and makeup artists, as well as someone from the transportation department and the set production assistant, also showed up to meet them and were there until wrap, giving them a total of sixteen hours and 45 minutes. Many of you who are less familiar with the culture of filmmaking may find these hours to be pretty crazy, but those of us who regularly work on sets know there was nothing out of the ordinary about this day — and it wasn't even that extreme compared to other movies and TV series, which often go beyond the standard schedule of a twelve-hour day.
These hours can be a bit grinding for me, but as a producer I have the latitude to show up later or leave earlier. Actors can have brutal days, but they also usually get days off, as most shows are ensembles and they’re rarely in every scene. And let’s face it, producers and actors are highly compensated for their work. However, the average below-the-line worker (the budgetary classification for those who aren’t producers, directors, actors, or writers) has to be there every day and make a middle-class wage. And, from my perspective, they are also the people who whine the least about this extreme schedule.
It has always been difficult for me to understand how so many in this business put up with such a punishing routine. So, as our work week wore on, I decided to interview some of the people around me about their feelings on the hours they work and how this regimen affects their lives.
:: continue reading ::
How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?
By MAGGIE JONES
We all know that we don’t get enough sleep. But how much sleep do we really need? Until about 15 years ago, one common theory was that if you slept at least four or five hours a night, your cognitive performance remained intact; your body simply adapted to less sleep. But that idea was based on studies in which researchers sent sleepy subjects home during the day — where they may have sneaked in naps and downed coffee.
Enter David Dinges, the head of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the Hospital at University of Pennsylvania, who has the distinction of depriving more people of sleep than perhaps anyone in the world. :: READ the whole article ::
We all know that we don’t get enough sleep. But how much sleep do we really need? Until about 15 years ago, one common theory was that if you slept at least four or five hours a night, your cognitive performance remained intact; your body simply adapted to less sleep. But that idea was based on studies in which researchers sent sleepy subjects home during the day — where they may have sneaked in naps and downed coffee.
Enter David Dinges, the head of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the Hospital at University of Pennsylvania, who has the distinction of depriving more people of sleep than perhaps anyone in the world. :: READ the whole article ::