In Time magazines article Health: Sleep-Deprived by Sanjay Gupta sleep deprivation is studied first hand. The author underwent a sleep study where he went for 30 hrs without sleep and then attempted to fly a simulated 747 airplane. He found that he made a lot of mistakes that proved deadly had it been a real plane. His reaction time was way off, and his reflexes were slow. Additional research has shown getting 6 hours or less every night for a week is like not sleeping at all on the 7th day. Also, being up for more than 20 hours has the same ramifications as a person who was legally drunk at a .08 blood alcohol level.

The reason I decided to write about this article is because I recently had a son who is up most hours of the night. As a result I have been very sleep deprived and wondered what the ramifications are. Our textbook discusses sleep deprivation in chapter 4 on page 128. The book suggests that people need 7 to 8 hours of sleep in a 24 hour cycle to function properly, though each person differs.