Let’s face it, mariners need to be experts in sleep. From split watch schedules to operations requiring “All hands On Deck” sleep not only comes at a premium but is a critically important factor in accident prevention and remaining healthy. To highlight these issues we have brought you many articles on the subject including the popular “Night Shift A Cause Of Cancer” and “Get Some Sleep! Accident Photo Of The Week“. This week we will continue the series with tips on how to cheat sleep.
Editorial Note: Sleep loss and driving ships is a deadly combination. We don’t suggest you ever attempt to cheat sleep, we simply hope to broaden your knowledge in the subject.
The Basics Of Sleep
Quality not quantity. No matter how much your mother tells you that you need eight hours of sleep, if you’re not tired and you can’t truly relax, your sleep time will be worthless.
The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy. Each sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, which exhibit different brain- wave patterns. For our purposes, it suffices to say that one sleep cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes:
- 65 minutes of normal, or non-REM (rapid eye movement), sleep
- 20 minutes of REM sleep (in which we dream)
- Final 5 minutes of non-REM sleep.
Source: CentACS
00-04 Watchkeepers: Maximize “Core Sleep”
“Core sleep” is a variant of Uberman sleep that adds a block of sleep, usually several hours, to the Uberman schedule, replacing one or two naps. (This term is also sometimes used to describe accidental oversleep by someone following Uberman, though one will more likely see the term “crash”, and occasionally “reboot”.) Another variant is called Everyman sleep schedule. Buckminster Fuller advocated Dymaxion Sleep, a regimen consisting of 30 minute naps every six hours. A short article was published about this schedule in the October 11, 1943 issue of Time Magazine. According to this article, he followed this schedule for two years, but after that had to quit because “his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men.”
Source: Wired How-To
Keys to the Midday Nap
A successful midday nap depends on two things: timing and (no kidding) caffeine consumption. Experiments performed at Loughborough University in the UK showed that the sleep-deprived need only a cup of coffee and 15 minutes of shut-eye to feel amazingly refreshed.
1. Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.
2. Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze, you’ll get what’s known as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness.
3. Limit your nap to 15 minutes. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which handles functions like judgment. This gray matter can take 30 minutes to reboot.
Source: Wired [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · 43folders, graveyard shift, lifehacks, mind hacks, nap, napping, productivity, sleep, tips, watchstanding
Photo by christinepilote
Can you starve to death sleep?
We have highlighted national sleep week, showed you how to cheat on sleep and even provided outrageous photos of a sleep realted incident but today’s post tops them all. Apparently our bodies have two internal clocks, one based on light and the other based on food. Lifehacker tells us:
Normally, the body’s natural circadian clock in the brain dictates when to wake, eat and sleep, all in response to light. But it seems a second clock takes over when food is scarce, and manipulating this clock might help travelers adjust to new time zones.
Granted, fasting is certainly extreme for just a few hours worth of jet lag, but the article points out that an 11-hour time change—like one an American traveler might experience when flying to Japan—would take the average person an entire week to adjust to. In such cases, a fast-before-you-fly policy could do wonders. The article is iffy about the effectiveness of this method, so if you’ve ever tried it, let’s hear how it worked in the comments.
If this interests you be sure visit NPR’s Science Friday post on the subject (audio file in upper left corner).
Tags: · sleep
Tags: · friend ship, london olympics, Maritime, merchant-marine, podcast, sleep, watchstanding
This is National Sleep Awareness Week and the NTSB wants to share information on Crew Endurance Management. They write:
Endurance involves the body’s ability to maintain performance within safe limits while enduring psychological, environmental, and physiological challenges, Stevens said. Health, nutrition, stress, sleep, work schedules and noise levels all affect crew operations.
The issue in any situation involving transportation, whether it’s airplane, train, even a car or truck, is the fatigue issue, said Walter Blessey, chief executive officer of Blessey Marine Services in New Orleans. If someone goes to sleep when they’re involved in steering or running a piece of equipment, there can be serious consequences - maybe death.
Crew endurance management systems (CEMS) involve four categories:
* environmental factors, which are the effects of ambient temperature, noise and vibration on the human body;
* operational factors, which are the effects of company and boat policies;
* physiological factors, which are the effects of sleep, diet, exercise and shifts on the body and performance;
* psychological factors, which are the effects of stress and working conditions on performance.
Why is this an Important topic? Click this photo for the answer:
For more information visit the following links:
Tags: · CEMS, Endurance Management, ntsb, sleep, USCG, watchstanding
Cosco Busan Photo by Noah Berger/Associated PressOctober 15th 2003 the Staten Island ferry crashed into a concrete pier killing eleven people and leaving 71 injured. It was later determined that the captain lost consciousness while at the ship’s controls. He had taken the painkillers Tramadol and Tylenol PM, both of which can cause drowsiness as a side effect. Since that time the United States Coast Guard has put increased scrutiny on the medical records of all licensed mariners, a review process that could get more stringent as details emerge regarding medication taken by the Cosco Busan’s pilot.The Associated Press tells us:
The ship pilot who was at the helm when a freighter spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay in November suffers from a sleep disorder and was on prescription medication to ward off drowsiness, people close to the investigation told The Associated Press.Investigators want to know whether the disorder — or even the medication itself — contributed to the accident.Federal officials and others, speaking on condition of anonymity, said John Cota has sleep apnea, a breathing condition that can disrupt sleep all night long and leave sufferers severely fatigued during the day. Sleep apnea is blamed for countless auto accidents every year in which drivers nodded off at the wheel.Cota, 59, was also said to be taking a sleep-apnea drug whose known side effects include impaired judgment.Prescription drugs are “certainly a part of our investigation,” said G. Ross Wheatley, chief of investigations for the Coast Guard’s San Francisco sector.The disclosure has raised questions among members of Congress about the Coast Guard’s licensing practices and whether Cota should have been deemed fit for a job in which he was responsible for guiding giant cargo ships in and out of port and through the dangerous waters of the bay.Under Coast Guard policy, a sleep disorder can be grounds for disqualification, but is not automatically so. Continue Reading…
Tags: · bay bridge, cosco-busan, cosco_busan, investigation, john-cota, licensing, medical, ntsb, sleep, sleeping pills, USCG
