Chrissy Zehrbach
Special to the Campus Times

Steven Falls used to only get two-to-three hours of sleep each night. As a 21-year-old college student balancing school, work and a social life, getting a good night’s sleep was not a top priority.

Then on July 6 of last year, as Falls was coming home from a friend’s house around 2:30 a.m., he fell asleep at the wheel. Falls said he could remember driving down the street, but “that’s pretty much all I remember.”

This was his second accident as a result of drowsiness.

“I’d had problems in the past falling asleep while driving,” Falls said, adding that the accident scared him – and his dad. Fortunately Falls, now a senior at the University of La Verne,  was able to walk away from the accident, and although his truck was destroyed, he was among the lucky.

Each day there are drowsy drivers on the road who think they can make it home before falling asleep.

“For some the motion and hypnotic effect of the painted lines passing rhythmically along is soothing and promotes sleep onset,” said Dr. James C. O’Brien, president of TalkAboutSleep, Inc., who is board certified in sleep medicine. “Driving needs to be avoided whenever excessive fatigue is present. Sleep is a state of reversible unconsciousness during which you will have amnesia.”

The amount of sleep one need each night depends on a person’s age and genetic disposition. But the recommendation is between six and 10 hours with children needing more than adults.

“Eight hours is still pretty standard, but it’s pretty hard to find people that do that,” saidTim Cunningham, lead technologist for the Huntington Sleep Disorder Center at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. “A lot of people can get by with six. Very few can get by with four without having mental problems.”

Sleep is important because that is when “your body resets itself,” Cunningham said. And for younger people, it is the time when growth hormones are released so it is a very important part of development.

“Sleep is as essential as water, nutrition, sunlight and (it’s) required for our bodies to recharge and heal itself and our brains to be emotionally grounded, intellectually open and alert for the days activities,” O’Brien said.

The 2005 Sleep in America Poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation revealed that on average adults in America sleep only 6.8 hours a night on weekdays and 7.4 hours a night on weekends. At the same time, the percentage of adults who claim to be getting eight or nine hours of sleep a night on weekdays has decreased, with 26 percent this year, down from 38 percent in 2001. Sixteen percent of Americans get less than six hours of sleep.

With less sleep, there is a higher tendency for drivers to be tired while on the road. Sixty percent of Americans surveyed who had a license reported having driven drowsy in the past year, according to the Sleep in America Poll. This statistic has increased from 51 percent in 2001.

Among that group, 29 percent reported having an accident or near accident at least once a month in the past year. Overall, 37 percent admit to nodding off at least once while driving, even for a brief moment.

Desiree Quintero, a 21-year-old college student, was driving to school around 9 a.m. on March 30 when she fell asleep at the wheel. Quintero was coming from her internship, which starts at 3 a.m.

“When I woke up I was in the middle of the intersection and the light was red and a car was turning right at me,” said Quintero, a University of La Verne senior. She swerved and avoided the crash.

Because of her hectic schedule with school, an internship and a job that keeps her up late at night, Quintero said she averages three-to-four hours of sleep a night.

“Sometimes I don’t get any sleep at all,” she said. Because of this sleep deprivation, she said she often has trouble keeping her heavy eyes open – and falls asleep while driving about once a month.

Quintero may have avoided her accident, but many do not. In 2003 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that approximately 1,577 accidents occurred as a result of drowsiness, sleep, fatigue, illness or blackouts. But those numbers can only be collected in cases where the driver has reported such a condition.

Steve Kohler, spokesman for the California             Highway Patrol, said statistics are hard to collect on drowsy driving incidents because the driver must report it.

“And if someone is killed, we have no idea (if they were sleeping),” Kohler said.

In most drowsy-driving situations, the driver most often enters a stage of “microsleep,” according to Colleen Cancio, government affairs director of the National Sleep Foundation. Microsleep occurs as a result of sleep deprivation, where the brain immediately enters REM sleep for a brief amount of time, usually a duration of two-to-five seconds.

Microsleep occurs “whether people realize it or not,” Cancio said. “Most people do not know they are about to fall asleep.”

“You don’t notice at first,” Falls said. “Then it becomes noticeable and you try really hard (to stay awake), but sometimes it doesn’t matter.”

Falls said there have been times when while driving all he is thinking about is trying to stay awake, with the windows down and the radio up, but he finds his eyes still closing.

Roger Darwicki, a registered polysomnography technician at the Sleep Disorder Center at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, said “bad sleep hygiene” is a major cause of sleep deprivation.

Among the many problems are snoring, narcolepsy and sleep apnea. Distractions such as reading or watching television in the bedroom can also lead to sleep disorders.

“Circadian Rhythm disturbances caused by excessive artificial light exposure from TVs and computer screens that prevent normal melatonin release in the evening hours, would otherwise enable an individual to begin to feel just how tired they really are,” O’Brien said.

Sleep apnea is the biggest sleeping disorder, although it is hard to diagnose and often goes undetected, causing excessive daytime sleepiness, which contributes to accidents, Cunningham said.

“Sleep apnea is one of the conditions that cause air blockages to occur. This wakes up the brain and results in less sleep,” Darwicki said. “However, these arousals are only about 10 seconds long, and people do not realize it, but it “causes you to not get the deep sleep you need.”

Cunningham said the No. 1 sleep disorder is stress, which causes fragmented sleep and falling asleep later.

The Better Sleep Council’s stress and sleep survey found that 65 percent of Americans are losing sleep due to stress.

Fifty percent of a good night’s sleep is spent in stage two of sleep, Cunningham said.  Stages three and four are where delta brain waves occur, the final brainwave state. Delta brain waves have the greatest amplitude and slowest frequency, causing a deep sleep.

“If they’ve had delta sleep they tend to feel more rested,” Cunningham said.

The normal sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes and ends in REM. Cunningham said the REM stage is considered very important, although no one is sure why. With sleep apnea, REM shuts down.

After 24 hours a person’s brain waves will read as slower. This does not bode well for those on the road.

“Sleep deprivation will slow you down almost to the extent of being drunk,” Cunningham said.

According to a stress and sleep survey conducted by The Better Sleep Council, 26 percent of women claim to have trouble sleeping at least once a week compared to only 16 percent of men.

However, O’Brien said there is no reason why women should be more prone to sleep deprivation.

“Society has given both men and women challenges and they’re both equal,” O’Brien said. “We’re not hardwired differently.”

He said the only difference might be the denial of one’s degree of sleepiness. He said men are more likely to feel invincible and can therefore feel they can drive while tired.

“When they’re tired, instead of going slow, they’re going fast trying to get home quickly,” O’Brien said. “Someone less in denial will realize they’re exhausted.”

Being male and 21 places Falls is one of the groups more prone to drowsy driving incidents.                       

“The most at-risk group for drowsy-driving crashes is males ages 18-25,” Cancio said, based on factors of sleeping habits, exercise habits and risky behavior.

“At this age it’s just nonstop,” Falls said. “You go all day long. At night it’s time to recover and sleep and you just don’t want to do it - that’s your social time.”

Falls considers himself more of a night person, as do 55 percent of Americans according to the Sleep in America Poll. Staying up late out of habit and having to get up to work and go to school, Falls found it hard to fit sleep into his schedule. But he would like to change that.

“Since the accident I’ve taken certain steps to improve my sleeping habits,” Falls said, although he admits he has dozed off two or three times since. “I still drive tired maybe once a week or once every two weeks.”

Shift-workers are also in a high-risk group for drowsy driving.

“There is really no schedule for their sleep,” Cunningham said, adding that after about five years these people will develop ‘shift-work disorder’ which throws off sleeping patterns.

For drowsy drivers, Cunningham suggests changing overall sleep patterns, but if necessary one should pull over and take a nap for at least 45 minutes so they will enter the dream stage.           

“When you dream you tend to wake up feeling more refreshed and ready for the day,” Cunningham said.

Napping can be beneficial to anyone who does not get the sleep needed at night. The longer a person goes without sleep, the more sleep is needed to catch up.

“The elderly need to take naps more often. They usually get less sleep at night and need to make up for it,” Darwicki said.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, signs of sleep deprivation include: yawning frequently, difficulty keeping eyes open, nodding off, failing to remember the last few miles, missing road signs and turning into other lanes or the shoulder of the road.

Those prone to drowsy driving should be careful driving alone, and driving at night as it is harder to fight off sleep in the dark.      

While Falls plans to change his sleeping habits, Quintero said she plans to drink more coffee to help keep herself alert. O’Brien said, however, coffee is not an effective way of staying awake.

“If you’re really exhausted, sleep comes over you,” he said.

To avoid sleep deprivation and accidents on the road, the Better Sleep Council suggests the following tips to getting a better night’s sleep: make sleep a priority and allow yourself to go to bed, unwind early in the evening, develop a sleep ritual, keep regular hours, create a restful place to sleep, sleep on a comfortable and supportive mattress, exercise regularly, cut down on stimulants such as caffeine, do not smoke and lower alcohol consumption.

Chrissy Zehrbach can be reached at sqweet@aol.com.