"I'm going to stay awake for 24 hours and take you on a journey through the world of sleep." "You'll meet an insomniac who can't get to bed." "This problem was really taking away my life." "And a round the world sailor who must stay awake." "Find out just how violent a sleepwalker can get." "I ripped my closet door off the wall." "And see how this man faces suffocation every time he catches a few winks." "We'll try to unravel the mystery of dreams and find out how sleep can be utterly terrifying." "I feel spiders." "Snakes." "At three in the morning I'll hook up with shift workers who." "Like me." "Are toiling away after dark." "And through it all I'll try every trick in the book to stay awake." "You weren't supposed to look." "See what happens to my mind and body as I fight the over powering urge to sleep." "Wow." "Nothing beats a good night's sleep." "Did you know that we spend a third of our lives sleeping and yet we still have more questions than answers when it comes to the mysterious world of sleep like "Why do we need to sleep?" And "How much sleep do we need?"" "Or "What happens to our bodies when we sleep?"" "Most importantly "What happens when we can't sleep?"" "I'm Kat Carney and for the next 24 hours" "I'm going to stay awake to test my body's limits as I battle the effects of sleep deprivation." "So stay with me as we take a real time look inside the fascinating world of sleep." "Now if you'll excuse me I have to go get dressed." "I'm going to do my best to go without sleep for 24 hours but that's an easy trick for some sportsmen that I'd like to introduce you to." "Check out this natural laboratory for sleep deprivation." "These are solo sailors who race around the world." "They're alone at sea for as long as six weeks at a time." "These are people who if they had their choice would never shut their eyes." "Sailors who fall asleep at the helm of one of these boats could not only lose the race they could lose their lives." "John Pierre Mouligne is a solo sailor who managed to survive and win the 26.000-mile around alone challenge." "The danger when you're sailing alone and you don't have enough sleep is you know." "You start to hallucinate." "After three days without sleeping you start to go crazy." "You literally see stuff coming out of the water and what's dangerous about it is that you start to make very bad decisions." "Unfortunately." "These solo sailors can't avoid that semi-conscious state we call sleep." "Though we spend about eight hours a night sleeping." "From cradle to grave scientists still struggle to define it" "In fact." "The best we can really do is describe it." "Sleep." "Generally speaking is when our bodies are still." "We drift away from conscious thought." "We become unresponsive to stimuli from the outside world." "To sleep is also to recharge our batteries." "It plays a key role in the growth and repair of our muscles and organs and scientists think we may even need sleep to help lock in the day's memories." "When I force myself to stay awake" "I'm fighting natural daily cycles called circadian rhythms." "These regulate daily changes in my blood pressure my body temperature and most importantly." "My sleep." "Our circadian rhythms are controlled in our brain by the master clock." "A small collection of cells located where pathways from our two eyes meet." "Tapping directly into the visual system our master clock monitors the amount of light in the outside world." "As it gets dark the clock triggers the pineal gland to release a hormone called melatonin which signals the body to prepare for sleep." "Exposure to light is the main factor that sets our clock and determines when we feel awake and when we're ready to call it a day" "We fight our natural clock at our own peril." "Whether you're trying to work a normal job or sail a boat around the world too little sleep leads to mood changes such as irritability and depression." "It temporarily diminishes mental abilities leading to problems with memory and concentration." "Motor skills." "Reflexes and hand eye coordination also suffer" "These are side effects of sleep loss a solo sailor definitely wants to avoid." "Learning how to sleep efficiently is the key to the whole thing." "I think it's the most important factor of single handed sailing is knowing how to manage your fatigue and your sleep." "Jean-Pierre recruited Dr. Claudio Stampi who has studied the sleep patterns of over 100 solo sailors." "I started studying solo sailors over 20 years ago because I was interested in sleep deprivation and in ways to manage sleep deprivation in situations where you cannot avoid it." "Solo sailing is a very interesting model of that because the." "The sailor is alone and has to deal with all sorts of efforts physical mental intellectual" "So your brain needs to be working very well." "The average sleeper on land has his night broken into five distinct stages." "Stage one is the transition from being awake to sleep." "It's that drifting feeling where your eyes get heavy." "If you are awakened." "You might not even realize you've nodded off." "Stage two is a very light sleep." "Your muscles relax and your brain activity slows." "Stage three is deep sleep where the heart and breathing rate slow considerably and the brain and body begins to truly rest." "Stage four is the deepest level of sleep." "It is in deep sleep where the body releases human growth hormone which orchestrates the routine repair of muscle and bone." "Lastly. 90 minutes or so into sleep you shift into rapid eye movement or REM sleep." "It is here that dreaming occurs and it is here where we likely consolidate our memories." "But solo sailors don't have the luxury of sleeping through an entire night." "Out at sea they are never more than a few minutes away from a potential disaster." "Stampi's solution?" "Return." "Literally." "To sleeping like a baby." "We are nappers for several months." "And sometimes for years after a birth" "And when we get to the old ages we also tend to return to a poly-phasic pattern to a multiple napping pattern." "So the idea is probably relatively easy for us to go back to this ancestral pattern and in fact." "This is exactly the strategy that most solo sailors do" "They take several naps many times per day." "Using autopilot." "The sailor can grab a quick nap and get the rest the body so badly needs to survive." "Really tried never to sleep more than 25 minutes at a time get up for five minutes you look around make sure everything is good on the boat the boat is going fast in the right direction and then go back to sleep for 25 minutes." "For Jean-Pierre this strategy not only gave him the edge to win the race he's put it to use at home as well." "We just had a baby about four weeks ago and my training." "That's really helping me out." "We're sleeping about." "About an hour and a half at a time you know." "So it's working." "Dr. Stampi has helped dozens of solo sailors learn that sleep is more than just a nightly ritual." "It's the key to victory." "A lesson we should all take to heart." "So I've been up for a couple of now and I'm feeling fresh and well rested and ready to go." "And right now I'm standing in the offices of Circadian Technologies a company that's devoted to improving safety and alertness in the workplace." "Now we're gonna begin our experiment here by testing my alertness on their state of the art driving simulator." "And then at the end of my 24 hour experiment we're gonna come back and we're gonna test my alertness again and get a before and after comparison." "So are you ready to go?" "I am." "Buckle up." "Let's take it for a spin." "So." "I'm all hooked up." "Is there anything I need to know before I start here?" "Well you just have to do some driving." "Just try to stay on the road stay in the lane." "Okay." "Stay on the road." "Stay in the lane." "Are there gonna be any cars coming at me?" "No." "It's gonna be a very boring drive because we want you to get drowsy as soon as possible." "They're measuring my speed." "My steering and my reaction time." "How well I do behind the wheel deteriorates with loss of sleep." "And these wires?" "They're measuring my brain waves looking to see if I have miniature sleep episodes so small I can't even notice them." "Now this may look easy now but if you get to about two o'clock in the morning and short of sleep then you'll start having these little micro sleep lapses." "Which of course are what we're really trying to study here." "Where people just totally lose it and may." "If the road takes a bend." "They'll come off because the car will just keep going straight." "Dr. Martin Moore-Ede." "President of Circadian Technologies will compare my driving today with my performance tomorrow after a full night of sleep deprivation." "So if I only miss a couple of hours of sleep or let's say I only got five hours of sleep last night does that put me at risk?" "You're going to be at risk at certain times." "As I said." "You will be at risk after lunch." "You'll be at risk nighttime." "Late hour driving." "That's the time when you're most vulnerable." "But even an hour or two's worth of." "Of sleep loss can have some effect." "Well." "I'm doing pretty good but let's see how I do tomorrow." "It's one p. m." "And already I'd love to catch a quick nap." "But maybe that's just because I'm hanging out with" "William and Camille Anthony authors and authorities on napping." "Need I say more?" "These nap junkies have a unique lingo to discuss their favorite past time." "Well." "We're not napaphobic." "Right Bill?" "Right." "Right." "Right." "We aren't." "No." "And I..." "We don't have a deep-seated fear of napping." "No and I'm not a snapper." "Right." "You don't criticize me for my napping behavior." "Right." "And we have napnasiums" "Right." "We have certain places where we practice our napping." "Right." "What else?" "Well we have a number of napnomic devices." "Correct." "And what's your napnomic device?" "Oh." "Probably an open window or a radio on or something like that." "How about you?" "Mine's a blanket and my shoes off." "Okay." "But what are these napaholics really trying to tell us?" "We think it's a natural thing to nap." "What's unnatural is not napping and." "And we have to get over that and start to be comfortable with with following what our body wants us to do which is to have a nap revel in your nap around somewhere between one to four in the afternoon." "Bill is talking about what's known as the post lunch dip." "It's our circadian rhythms calling again." "Deny it if you want but we have a physiological need to take a nap in the afternoon." "In many countries." "People surrender and take a much-needed siesta." "Famous nappers include Thomas Edison who did it on the sly." "And Winston Churchill who did it openly." "Recent studies show that napping can increase alertness and if Bill and Camille have their way everyone will be getting a little shut eye during the day." "Together." "The Anthonys have written a book" "The Art of Napping at Work." "It's not that folks should nap on the job but nap at work." "In other words." "During their break." "They get bathroom breaks." "Coffee breaks smoke breaks." "Lunch breaks." "Etcetera and they should be able to take a nap during those breaks if they wish." "So it's not really asking a lot it's just saying during your break one of the good things you can do for yourself is to nap." "As for the Anthonys they are anxious to get to work on another book but not until after they take a quick nap." "It's three p. m." "And I've been up for seven hours." "I'd like to take a nap more than ever but not today." "But." "Hey." "If you're a napper." "Here's some advice for you." "Remember the stages of sleep?" "Well we shift from light sleep into deep sleep after 20 minutes." "So if you want to nap." "Set your alarm to wake you before you enter deep sleep." "A 20-minute nap." "Or wait until deep sleep is over." "That's a 90-minute nap." "Anything in between and you'll wake up groggy." "Now let's meet someone who couldn't get through the day without taking several naps." "He has a medical condition that is one of the leading causes of daytime sleepiness." "It's called sleep apnea." "This is publisher Walter Connors" "Ten years ago he began to experience daily debilitating bouts of fatigue." "He needed help so he went to spend the night in a sleep lab." "It's a weird night." "You." "You." "You go to sleep." "You try to go to sleep." "You're hooked up with a lot of wires all over you and there's a camera going up in the ceiling watching every move you make during the night." "There is a technician in the next room who comes in and watches you during the night and it's." "It's quite a trick to get to sleep at all." "While Walter slept his tongue relaxed blocking the opening of his airway momentarily suffocating him in his sleep." "I was running at the rate of 60 apneas an hour which is 60 times an hour my breathing would shut down." "Yes." "It's the same place as the large blue awning" "Walter is not alone." "Sleep apnea affects as many as 18 million Americans and its number one symptom is snoring." "Walter's remedy?" "A special mask that applies just the right amount of pressurized air to the throat and keeps the airway open." "It takes some getting used to especially if you roll over when your sleep." "It's not the most comfortable way to sleep." "But it." "It is a help." "And with me it's cut the apnea events down from 60 to about 30 an hour so it's not." "It's not the complete answer." "Nevertheless." "The mask has changed Walter's life." "His daytime sleepiness has all but vanished." "My stamina is better." "I can attend meetings in the afternoon and am just about as alert as I was first thing in the morning." "I don't have the tremendous need for naps that I used to have." "So it's." "It's a big improvement." "Huh!" "You thought I was sleeping didn't you?" "Please." "I'm past the halfway mark." "I can't quit now." "Actually." "I'm just testing mattresses." "You know." "Do you toss and turn at night for hours trying to get to sleep?" "Well." "It might be that old lumpy mattress you're sleeping on." "I mean." "After all." "The average person spends 24 years of their lives sleeping." "So choosing the right mattress is extremely important." "I've got some testing to do." "So I'm here at Jordan's Furniture and I have no idea how to choose a good mattress." "Maybe I can help." "Oh." "Maybe you can Brian." "I need a good mattress." "Okay." "Well choosing a mattress can be a difficult thing." "There's a lot of things to consider and it's very important." "For example." "What you're on right now is a waterbed" "This is a waterbed?" "They don't look like they used to." "They don't look like a wooden sandbox with a bag of water in them." "But lay right down and I'll tell you about it." "Water's great for contouring to the shape of your body so you can be comfortable and yet it's supportive." "There's also latex foam." "Latex foam is a foam rubber so it's supportive for your back as well as feeling foam-like." "Squishier." "Soft." "There's something new on the market." "It's called visco-elastic memory foam." "Originally the material was developed by NASA and they developed it to relieve pressure points with the astronauts." "You also have your traditional inner spring mattress." "They're gonna support your back well." "The most important question to ask yourself when thinking about a mattress is" ""When did I buy my old one?"" "A good mattress lasts about eight to 12 years." "So if you bought yours before Bill Clinton became president it may be time for a new one." "These mattresses are all good so it's really a matter of taste." "And of course money." "A decent mattress runs from 500 dollars all the way to 2000 dollars." "But be careful not to skimp." "This is one area where you usually get what you pay for." "The more comfortable you are." "The better you are going to sleep." "But it is about getting a good mattress." "It is." "It's about getting a good mattress." "Tell them." "Brian." "It is." "It's about getting a good mattress." "It's seven p. m." "And for the people at this support group meeting." "Getting a good night's sleep is not the problem." "In fact." "It's just the opposite." "They can't stay awake." "They are among the more than 135.000 Americans who suffer from narcolepsy." "A disorder marked by irresistible attacks of sleep." "Narcolepsy is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and the sleepiness is often so intense that people with narcolepsy can feel as though they've been up all night and they feel that way every day." "And so for many people with narcolepsy it's a struggle to stay awake on a day by day basis." "It's affected everything in the past three years of my life." "My school." "My work." "My friends." "Myself" "My personality has changed." "And everything's changed." "So my life is nothing like it used to be." "In addition to having the sleepiness they often have three other symptoms." "They have what are called hypnagogic hallucinations which are hallucinations that are very vivid and intense sensations that often come on just as they are falling asleep or perhaps just as they wake up." "And those hallucinations can be a sensation of suddenly falling or they may think that they heard a sound or they saw somebody in their bedroom." "I dreamt I had needles in my mouth." "I could hear my little nieces running around." "Which they were and I couldn't spit the needles out because I didn't want them to get hurt and my mother could see my face like I was hurt and upset." "Something was painful." "While I was sleeping." "I had to keep those needles in my mouth." "They can also have what's called sleep paralysis." "Which is a." "An inability to move when they wake up from sleep and the first time that the sleep paralysis happens to people they can often find it terrifying." "When I'm sitting and." "And I start to want to go to sleep but I'm not asleep." "That's when I have it and I can't move and I. I can hear." "I know where I'm at." "I know where I'm sitting." "I'm sitting in my living room but I hear strange noises like people coming in the house and I'm trying to wake up and I fight." "Fight." "Fight." "It seems like it lasts forever." "I don't know how long it lasts but it's a." "That's a terrifying experience for me." "I hate it." "The final symptom that people with narcolepsy have that is seen in almost no other disease is something called cataplexy." "And cataplexy is a sudden loss of muscle tone." "Or muscle power." "And I was standing in the ocean." "Up to my knees." "Just standing there looking out and I just keeled over and I was laying on." "In the water with my nose rubbing against the sand and I couldn't move and it was awful." "And I just held my breath for about." "And finally it passed." "That." "You know." "Was a first time experience and it just scared me to death." "It's usually brought on by an intense emotion such as laughter but sometimes it can occur with anger or fear." "And." "So the most classic situation would be that somebody hears a really great joke and suddenly their knees go all weak and their trunk is weak and they'd slump to the ground." "Narcoleptics can succumb to cataplexy at any time sometimes dozens of times a day." "Luckily for Michelle." "This bout of cataplexy came on while she was seated." "Nevertheless." "The loss of muscle control in her face and jaw renders her unable to speak." "Cataplexic attacks can last for up to 30 minutes." "If an episode comes on while a narcoleptic is driving." "Swimming or climbing stairs the consequences can be deadly." "I'm afraid to go for a walk by myself." "If I'm more tired." "I'm more prone to having cataplexy." "So if I go for a walk I don't know how I'm gonna be." "How far I can go and how I'm gonna be walking back." "Luckily." "Narcoleptics are getting the first novel treatment in 40 years." "Once they took addictive amphetamines to try to stay awake." "Today." "There's a new." "Safer stimulant called modafinil." "But even with the drug." "Michelle suffers cataplexic attacks on a daily basis." "Here the jitters of a television interview trigger an episode." "Got it." "So that's." "So that's cataplexy right there?" "Yeah." "Better treatment I believe will happen in my lifetime." "I think it's a condition that you have to learn about it and learn to live with it." "It's just a." "It's." "It's a battle." "Every hour." "Now there may be new hope for narcoleptics." "Watch this." "That's cataplexy." "Just like with humans." "The loss of muscle control makes these narcoleptic dogs go limp." "And look." "These mice are also narcoleptic." "The mice would walk along their cage normally and then after awhile they would suddenly fall over and they would twitch a little bit." "Then they'd get up and they'd walk a little more and then eventually fall over and then they'd come back and they would walk again." "What was happening was that the mice were having sleep attacks and they were literally falling over asleep." "Now scientists are using these animals to study narcolepsy." "It is the first window into this devastating sleep disorder." "It gives us a key to unlock some of these secrets about how the brain can fall asleep." "For a long time the things that happened in narcolepsy." "The sudden attacks of sleep." "The sudden transitions into the type of sleep that we call REM sleep." "Those things were completely without any explanation." "Studying mice and dogs." "Scientists have now found a gene for narcolepsy and they've discovered that a key to the disorder may be a messenger in the brain called orexin." "Scientists had known orexin helped regulate eating but they never suspected it might be involved in sleep." "This orexin discovery may lead to a whole new class of drugs for treating sleep disorders." "It's eight p. m." "And I'm taking a trip to the airport to explore another sleep-related problem." "Jet lag." "Jet lag happens when you travel across several time zones." "Before you know it." "Your internal biological clock is completely out of sync with your new environment." "It can take your circadian rhythms days to catch up." "These folks are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their family friend Flora Rampoon" "So you just got in from France how do you feel now?" "I feel excited." "Really?" "Well it's eight p. m." "Here." "What time is it where you live?" "Two." "Two in the morning." "Two in the morning and you feel fine?" "Yes." "We are used to go dancing." "Oh." "Okay." "So you never experience jet lag when you travel like this?" "Not really." "It's worse when I go." "Go back home." "How does it affect you when you go home?" "You feel hungry right in the middle of the night and it's just not sunny outside." "So..." "Flora is right." "Jet lag is worse going east." "Against the direction of the sun." "Scientists once studied baseball teams" "Those that had to travel west with the sun won more games than those that traveled east." "In the battle against jet lag many travelers today are using melatonin supplements." "As darkness approaches." "Our internal clock triggers the release of melatonin." "As the level of the hormone rises in our body we begin to feel drowsy." "A dose of melatonin may induce sleep reset your internal clock and offset the effects of jet lag." "So you don't do anything like taking melatonin or resetting your clocks." "Nope." "I had never heard about until today in the plane." "A woman told me about it." "What did she say?" "She said she." "She had forgotten to take one but she usually takes it." "So you don't think you'll have any problems?" "You're gonna wake up tomorrow regular time?" "I hope so." "I think it's because you're young." "That's why." "Maybe." "Okay." "Well I'm gonna go let you see your family." "Okay?" "Okay." "Thank you." "Thanks for talking with us." "You're welcome." "If you're planning a trip." "Here are a few things you can do to minimize the effects of jet lag." "Select a flight that allows early evening arrival and stay up until ten p. m." "Local time." "Anticipate the change by going to sleep at your new bedtime for several days prior to your trip." "Avoid caffeine and alcohol." "Both interfere with your sleep." "And if these tips don't bring you relief?" "Don't worry." "There's a new remedy that's based on our understanding that our brain uses light to synchronize our daily rhythms." "These space age specs are actually a prototype for a new product that just might turn out to be a foolproof remedy for jet lag." "Wear them on the plane and these sensors beam lights into your eyes." "Which gradually reset your internal clock." "So by the time you land." "You're fresh as a daisy." "Well." "It's the middle of the night and I'm still awake." "But that's because I'm trying to stay awake." "See that person up there in the window?" "She's an insomniac and tonight she's going to pace the floor for hours trying to fall asleep." "Almost two-thirds of Americans report some trouble falling asleep at least a few nights a week." "Let's say we go meet our troubled sleeper." "But shhh." "The rest of the neighborhood's sleeping." "Allison Make has insomnia." "It's not just trouble falling asleep." "Many insomniacs have trouble staying asleep and many find themselves waking up too early." "Allison felt the full effects when she entered college." "Being an 18-year-old. 19-year-old." "20-year-old college student it affected my social life and that was really hard." "I felt like." "You know." "This problem was really taking away my life and it was every day and it would only get worse." "Allison's doctors prescribed sleeping pills." "The most common sleeping pills are benzodiazepines." "These work by suppressing arousal centers in the brain." "A newer class of drugs called imidazopyradines encourages deep sleep." "But all sleeping pills are short-term fixes." "They can create rebound insomnia and dependence." "I got psychologically dependent on the medication and since it wasn't really helping me I wanted to go off of that." "Frustrated by her experience with sleeping pills" "Allison looked for an alternative." "There are herbals." "Such as chamomile." "Which may reduce stress and promote sleep." "Hops." "Which helps induce sleep by suppressing central nervous system activity and passion flower." "Which some people use as a mild sedative to calm the body." "You've had insomnia for a couple of years." "In consultation with naturopathic doctor Shiva Barton" "Allison tried a combination of alternatives." "He gave her vitamin B-6." "Which helps build a chemical precursor to melatonin and he changed her diet to increase her blood sugar so she wouldn't wake up hungry in the middle of the night." "It was really hard to believe that that was going to work and I was a little bit cynical but probably within a couple of weeks or a month's time" "I saw definite results." "For Allison." "Alternative medicine came to the rescue." "Her insomnia is finally under control and best of all she experienced a sign at least for her." "That she's cured." "One day." "I. I went to set my alarm but I forgot to actually turn it on and then I ended up oversleeping and it was very exciting." "So instead of being upset that I was late to work everyone was pretty excited for me that I was late to work and my dad actually congratulated me that I had overslept" "So that was exciting." "That was very exciting." "This patient is about to learn a relaxation technique that may help some people avoid sleep medication." "Over the next 15 minutes she will concentrate on her breathing and repeat a simple word over and over" "As she does this relaxation exercise" "Gregg Jacobs measures her brain waves." "He is looking for a wave pattern called theta." "Theta is the brain wave pattern that you produce as you fall asleep." "The purple on this bar indicates low amounts of theta activity." "Then what we have measured in our research is what do those brain wave patterns look like when somebody has been trained on relaxation techniques." "But instead of just seeing purple now we're seeing areas of green in the frontal and temporal areas of the brain and that's exactly what is necessary for." "For sleep onset to occur." "Gregg Jacobs's research is showing relaxation therapy can produce the exact brain wave patterns associated with sleep." "Try a few relaxation techniques at home and perhaps you may be able to put your sleeping pills away." "The majority of patients who learn mind." "Body and behavioral approaches actually become normal sleepers." "That's probably the biggest plus of using these mind." "Body and behavioral approaches is they're very." "Very effective they have very few side effects." "They're very inexpensive and they are a nice alternative to sleeping medications." "If you have trouble nodding off." "Even occasionally." "Sleep specialists have devised a list of tips that will dramatically increase your chances of sleeping like a baby." "The key is to practice good sleep hygiene." "Avoid caffeine." "Nicotine and alcohol in the late afternoon and evening." "Exercise regularly." "But not within three hours of bedtime." "Try white noise." "Like a fan." "It can often encourage sleep." "Take a warm bath about an hour and a half before bedtime." "Your body temperature will drop rapidly." "Which induces sleep" "And finally." "Don't look at the clock." "Obsessing over time only makes it more difficult to sleep." "Imagine if every time you went to bed your life became a terrifying and inescapable horror film." "You see visions of spiders and snakes and people crouched beside your bedside." "You body shoots up into a sitting position and you moan and you're sweating and you let out a bloodcurdling scream" "Your eyes are wide open but you're not even close to being awake." "I'm not talking about your run of the mill nightmares." "I'm talking about night terrors." "For David Richards." "Night terrors have been a life long problem." "Night terror is basically an altered type of a nightmare where you." "Your body is actually seeing something in the room or you're imagining that something is touching you." "You feel spiders." "Snakes." "Any kind of little animals and it's usually not things that you're afraid of in daytime." "A regular nightmare occurs in the dreaming stage of sleep." "But a night terror occurs during non-REM sleep." "Scientists put night terrors in a class of disorders called parasomnias where the individual gets caught between sleeping and waking." "I have found myself down at the bottom of a set of stairs." "And I've run out of the room and stood up on the kitchen table crouched for somewhere between five and ten minutes from the time I left my bed." "Usually I'm trying to escape whatever it is that I'm seeing in my night terror which can range anywhere from spiders." "Snakes." "To people standing over me." "Sleep terrors are characterized by a rapid heart rate." "Measuring as high as an astounding 170 beats per minute." "You know you're having a night terror from heart rate." "It." "It is so fast that you feel like your your heart is ready to jump out of your chest." "Nobody knows what causes night terrors and though regular exercise and medication can often help." "For David there's been no relief." "His ordeal has been no ordinary nightmare." "If you see the look of terror on somebody's face when they're having a night terror." "Whether they're awake or not." "That look is there and the eyes are just the wildest eyes you've ever seen" "You're not gonna get that during a regular nightmare." "That's only something you're gonna see during a night terror." "And it happens every single time." "Michael Horsman has no problem getting to sleep." "He just can't stay in bed." "Michael has another type of parasomnia" "He is a chronic sleepwalker." "When I was about seven or eight" "I would come down the stairs." "Walk down my parent's hallway." "Stand in the doorway and sometimes just stand there." "Other times I would go in the kitchen get a drink just little things like that or I would just wake up and then have no idea how I got up." "Most sleepwalkers outgrow the condition by adolescence." "Mike however." "Did not." "As he grew older his sleepwalking episodes only got worse." "The episodes kind of got worse." "I would just bolt downstairs." "Like screaming or yelling or something" "At one point it got so bad where I ripped my closet door off the wall." "Shattered the light bulb inside the closet and left the closet door on the floor then woke up the next morning and had no idea what happened." "I'm pretty laid back." "Easy going." "I don't usually rip closet doors off the wall." "These violent outbursts were completely out of character for Mike and they were now alarming his family." "At that point he was 17 years old and he was six feet tall at that point" "So he was a bit intimidating to me." "My mom actually became scared because I'm a little bigger than her." "One of the last episodes he bolted out of bed and appeared right next to me at my bed stating he didn't like snakes and I had lied to him." "And he had such a look in his eye." "I was afraid." "I had never seen that look before." "So before." "Well he went back to bed and before I went back to bed I hid all the knives all the sharp knives in the kitchen because it was a different look in his eyes and we had never seen that before." "They took Mike to Dr. Judith Owens at the Hasbro Children's Hospital Sleep Clinic." "Dr. Owens is an expert in parasomnias like sleepwalking and night terrors." "It's almost as though the individual is caught between being in a very deep stage of sleep and going on to a lighter stage of sleep." "Or even being awake." "So the behavior is characterized by both sleeping and waking features." "The brain is essentially asleep." "But the individual behaves as though they're awake in some ways." "Dr. Owens insisted that Mike keep a sleep diary." "Charting when he went to bed." "When he awoke and anything that happened in between." "After two weeks." "This simple log helped Owens determine the cause of the sleepwalking." "What we discovered was that he really was very sleep deprived." "He was not getting enough sleep on a consistent basis." "As is true with many teenagers unfortunately." "And we felt that that was really probably the major contributing factor" "He was also drinking a huge amount of caffeinated beverages during the day as well." "Which we thought was probably contributing to his difficulty falling asleep." "Sleep walking can be triggered by fever." "Anxiety or in this case sleep deprivation." "For Michael the treatment was simple a caffeine boycott and a good night's sleep." "The results were almost immediate." "We were surprised that it happened so fast." "What." "Just by him changing a few habits it's a." "He stayed in bed." "Exactly." "We were very relieved that he didn't have to go on any medication." "That what they recommended the first time worked." "For Mike." "His sleep is finally what it was always meant to be." "Restful." "Plentiful." "And thankfully travel free." "Well it's late and I'm still awake and I'm still working." "I guess you can say I'm working the night shift." "Did you know that 21 million Americans work the night shift?" "Forced to stay awake when their bodies are programmed for sleep." "For fireman." "Air traffic controllers and other shift workers a stint on the graveyard shift almost always makes a tough job tougher." "Now in addition to fighting crime." "Night shift police officers." "Like Doug Dunwoody here." "Are fighting something else." "They're fighting Mother Nature." "Namely." "They're fighting their biological clock." "So what exactly is the night shift?" "What are the hours?" "We start at 11:30 and we end at 7:30 in the morning." "It's a growing phenomenon impacting virtually every industry." "One in five Americans now work non-traditional hours." "The world works 24 seven." "Businesses run 24 seven." "We manufacture 24 seven." "We have telecommunications and satellites and the internet and computer systems all operating around the clock." "Our internal clock that tells us when to sleep is set by light." "No matter what we do our circadian rhythms will never adjust to staying up all night." "The result." "Shift workers are perpetually sleep deprived." "When I first started the night shift it was difficult to." "To go to bed at seven o'clock in the morning." "I do everything from putting cardboard in the windows to turning an air conditioner on or things like that so you can sleep." "That is something that our human bodies just weren't designed to do." "Working at night takes its toll on the immune system." "It may lead to a decrease in the so-called natural killer cells in our blood." "These cells play an important roll in the fight against infection." "Shift work is the hardest work that there is." "Studies show staying awake too long increases blood pressure." "Nighttime work raises the risk of heart disease by as much as 50 percent." "You know you try to." "Try to take your body out of its natural rhythm and then you end up screwing things up even worse." "Industrial accidents." "Resulting from exhaustion." "Cost the U.S. 77 billion dollars a year." "The most notable major industrial accidents of our time" "Exxon Valdez." "Bopal." "Chernobyl." "Three Mile Island all occurred on the night shift." "A guy who's." "Who's been awake for a certain amount of hours is just like somebody who's." "Who's legally drunk." "In fact a recent study found the impairment of hand eye coordination after staying up 24 hours is equivalent to a point one percent blood alcohol level." "Enough to be considered drunk in most states." "Has this had been your." "Your shift for ten years straight?" "This has been my shift for ten years." "Definitely this is." "This is all I know right now." "Wow." "That's a heck of a schedule." "It is." "I'm complaining about this one night shift I'm working." "If you're a shift worker here's some tips to maximize your alertness keep you safe and help get you to sleep after a long night's work." "Work with a buddy who can help keep you alert." "Take care of dangerous tasks early in your shift when you are most alert." "To avoid drowsy driving." "Take public transportation or have someone pick you up at work." "Wear dark glasses on your way home so the sunlight doesn't trigger your body to stay awake." "And lastly." "Make sleep a priority." "Seek absolute darkness and eliminate disturbances at home." "Believe it or not I've almost made it." "Sunrise is just a few minutes away." "Yet most people are lucky enough to still be off in dreamland." "Did you know we dream about two hours per night?" "Yet scientists are still trying to unravel the mysteries of why we dream and what our dreams mean." "Virtually every culture has tried to decipher hidden meanings in dreams." "You know." "Like the one where we're falling?" "Commonly for most people falling is a metaphor for losing face. losing rank or in some way the physical world not being safe." "Sounds good." "How about the one where we're being chased?" "Generally in interpreting that sort of dream asking one's self" "What do I not want to catch up to me?" "Or just what in waking life gives me the feeling of dread and panic that that dream of being chased does is going to tell you the most about what it means for you." "All right." "I'm almost too embarrassed to ask." "What about the one where we forgot to put our clothes on?" "All of these dreams seem to be some representation of other shame issues for us." "As." "As a child learning to keep our bodies clothed is something that we're." "We're taught and shamed about if we don't do it so it becomes an example for many other sort of waking situations in which feeling inadequate or like we haven't done the proper thing or feeling ashamed of something comes into play." "All together we dream for roughly 25 percent of our total sleep time." "It happens after we transition from light sleep to deep sleep to dream sleep." "Characterized by rapid eye movement." "Our brain is incredibly active at this stage but our bodies become paralyzed." "Probably to prevent us from acting out our dreams." "The latest research indicates that dreaming is essential for memory formation." "Learn a task one day and after a good night of dreaming." "You'll perform it better the next day and dreaming may even be natural psychotherapy." "Go to sleep after an unpleasant day and you'll wake up in a better mood." "Why we sleep has been one of science's biggest mysteries." "Perhaps part of the answer is that we sleep to get the benefits of dreaming." "Over the last 24 hours I've stayed up to learn first hand about sleep deprivation." "But I've been using the time wisely." "We've learned about our biological clocks and our daily body rhythms." "We've gathered tips on getting to sleep and how to deal with jet lag and night shifts." "We've peered into the world of dreams and we've seen what happens when people get stuck in that strange space between being awake and being asleep." "Okay." "So I've been up for 24 hours." "I'm quite tired and I'm now about to take my second driving test." "Let's see how I do." "As I drive." "They're going to measure my speed." "My steering and my reaction time once again." "This test was pretty easy the first time." "But now I'm having incredible difficulty concentrating on the road." "Be honest." "I can barely keep my eyes open." "I can feel myself starting to speed and the steering wheel seems to have a mind of its own." "I'm glad this is just a test." "Oh." "Thank goodness." "Well." "I didn't crash." "But I don't think I need a scientist to tell me how I did." "Not very good." "It was a short test but certainly it started to show the deteriorations we expect." "And of course." "You know." "You don't get in too much trouble in ten minutes but if you're out there driving on the highway and you're really fatigued in an hour or so you can get into serious trouble." "I hope you've enjoyed this journey inside the world of sleep." "Scientists continue to ponder the future of sleep." "And some even speculate that science may eventually eliminate the need for sleep at all." "But if you ask me about the future of sleep?" "Well." "All I have to say is it's time for this Kat to take a nap" "Can someone please shut the door?" "Good night."