Cornell professor Dr. James Maas both entertained and enlightened students at this week’s All-School Meeting in an interactive lecture about the importance of sleep. Dr. Maas began his speech with a poll on students’ average amount of sleep on weekdays. Less then five percent of students said they received Dr. Maas’s recommended sleep time of nine and quarter hours per night. The vast majority of students said they slept between six and seven hours a night. Dr. Maas immediately received support from the students when he said, “No school should ever start classes before nine a.m.” Alex Schwartz ’07 said, “I feel like if the school brings in a sleep expert to lecture us better sleeping habits, the school is obliged to follow his words and delay the start of school to nine a.m.” Dr. Maas continued to say that 70 percent of Americans are extremely sleep deprived and in a state of “pathological sleepiness” because they receive less then six hours of sleep a night. He also described high school and college students as “Walking Zombies.” According to Dr. Maas, America is the most sleep deprived nation in the world and that sleep deprivation costs the U.S. approximately $100 billion a year in terms of accidents and loss of productivity. Jess Cole ’08 described Maas’s presentation as “humorous and enlightening.” She continued, “He stated a lot that we already know, but at the same time it was all information that we needed to hear. Sleep is something which, admittedly, is one of the first pieces of the day to disappear when the assignments here start piling on, so his point about a good night’s sleep being a necessity versus a commodity was a strong argument, and I don’t think anyone would argue with a later school starting time!” Dr. Maas showed studies on the medical profile of 20-year-old students, who had slept four hours for six consecutive nights. Their profiles compared that of a 72-year-old because of high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, high blood sugar, and lower leptin molecules, a brain hormone related to eating. According to Dr. Maas, the average person should fall asleep after 15-20 minutes, if they receive the nightly recommend nine hours of sleep. The only category of people who came close to falling asleep in the recommended time was prepubescent children. Seniors citizens and Fortune 500 Executives averaged ten minutes to fall asleep, while the average high school or college student falls asleep after five minutes – the same amount of time for people with sleep disorders such as narcolepsy. Dan Giller ’06 said, “I always tried to get more sleep, but now it’s confirmed that sleep really does affect my day and I’ll try harder to get more sleep.” Dr. Maas amazed the audience when he explained that driving with a sleep-deprived person who has had only one drink, is comparable to driving with someone who has had six shots with eight hours of sleep. Dr. Maas said, “The difference between the crash of a drunken driver and sleeping driver, is the drunk driver’s crash has skid marks. Drivers that are sleep deprived go into micro-sleep with their eyes wide open, but their brains totally shut down.” Dr. Maas also stressed how important our mattress is and how vital it is to change our mattress every 10 years. He explained to the students that the combination of dust mites as well as the daily shed of skin and hair doubles the weight of a mattress every 10 years. Silke Cummings ’08 said, “I thought it was very good, I thought he was very funny. Dr. Maas’s presentation was really intriguing and quite a change from some of the other boring stuff. What he had to say was interesting and even though I found some of the facts like those about mattress really disturbing, I think what he had to say was really worth listening to.” Dr. Maas left the audience with advice on how to receiver longer and more efficient sleep cycles. His first tip was to go to bed everyday, at the same time and to sleep uninterrupted. He also said not use sleep aids such as Tylenol PM to fall asleep, and to not ingest stimulates after 2 pm because they will affect the ability to fall asleep naturally. He also mentioned that students need about one hour of sleep for every two hours of wakefulness. He said a 20-minute power nap in the middle of the day would help the nation eliminate sleep deprivation.
