This is National Sleep Awareness Week. So it's a good time to explore the following question with your workers: Are they getting enough sleep? Lack of sleep is more than a personal problem; it's a matter of workplace safety. Fatigue has been identified as a factor in many incidents and fatalities. Here's a sleep primer to share with your workers.

Sleep & Safety

Your mind and body need rest to recover from the stresses of the previous day and prepare for the next. Most adults need eight hours of sleep per day. Failure to get adequate sleep thus leads to a host of dangerous physical and mental effects that can put life and limb at risk, including, on the moderate end, slow reaction time and, on the extreme end, road rage and hallucinations.

Each day you deprive yourself of sleep, you build up a "sleep debt." That debt may not become apparent right away. But, like money debts, it can accumulate until suddenly you find yourself in over your head, and too tired to work safely.

Are You Short on Sleep?

Ask yourself two simple questions:

If not, you may be shortchanging yourself on needed sleep.

Signs of the Sleep Deprived

Tired workers show a variety of safety-sapping effects:

Tired workers are also less motivated and more forgetful. They have a greater tendency to take risks. Poor performance due to fatigue is more noticeable with repetitive tasks that take more than 30 minutes, or are complex and require close attention. Fatigued workers tend to rely on others to stay abreast of work, and often compensate for poor concentration by checking and re-checking their own work.

9 Tips for the Weary

Here are 9 tips for getting more sleep:

Conclusion

Encourage your workers to make sufficient sleep a priority for their health and safety. They'll be less stressed, work safer and be more pleasant to be around, too.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

The Exxon Valdez: A disaster caused by lack of sleep

11 Weird Facts about Sleep

By Ted Morrison

If you follow the news, you've probably seen the evidence linking lack of sleep with drowsy driving and road rage. You may know that lack of sleep depresses the immune system, leaving you more susceptible to disease and cancer.

Here are some lesser-known facts about sleep:

1. It's actually impossible to tell when someone is asleep without medical tests. People cat-nap with their eyes open all the time.

2. There have been three notable disasters in which lack of sleep played a role:

3. Being exposed to noise at night can depress your immune system, even if you don't wake up.

4. Your body needs to cool off in order for you to sleep. If you have trouble dropping off, try dropping the thermostat a couple of degrees.

5. If you fall asleep in fewer than five minutes at night, you're sleep deprived. The optimal time is ten to 15 minutes.

6. Ten percent of people who snore suffer from sleep apnea, a condition which causes sufferers to stop breathing, sometimes hundreds of times per night. Sleep apnea also raises your risk of heart disease and stroke.

7. Ducks sleep with just half of their brains. The other half stays alert for predators.

8. Teens and children need about 10 hours of sleep per night. Adults between 25 and 55 should be getting about eight.

9. Diaries from the Victorian era show that in the years before electric lamps, adults got eight to ten hours of sleep per night, varying with the seasons.

10. The record for spending the longest time awake, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is 276 hours, set by Toini Soimi of Finland in 1985. There are several claimants to the current record. In May 2007, Englishman Tony Wright awoke after a record-setting attempt, only to find that Guinness no longer accepts sleep deprivation attempts due to the possible health risks. Sleep deprivation is known to cause confusion, memory loss, extreme mood swings and irritability. In extreme cases it has been seen to lead to hallucinations and brain damage.

11. A new baby costs its parents between 400 and 750 hours of lost sleep in the first year.

Source: The National Sleep Project, Australia

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