Talk:Sleep debt

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[edit] Merge when Fixed

If this article is fixed up, I believe it should be merged with Sleep deprivation (but certainly not in its current state.) If not, the title should perhaps be changed to "Sleep deficit."

[edit] Source Questionable

This article seems to be mostly lifted from a single other source - in addition, I believe the scientific validity of the content can be disputed.

I'd say to, some people certainly can go for as long as they like without sleeping. [1] Mathmo 13:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific Studies?

I've searched for "Sleep Debt" and found many online articles that mention it, but I haven't been able to find any scientific studies. I think the validity of this article is in doubt without scientific references. I have also heard that sleep debt doesn't exist, so if anyone has any information on studies and experiments I believe they would be of great use to this article. Mixx 19:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC)


A quick search on scholar.google.com brought up dozens of refrences. --69.160.28.71 23:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific Acceptance of Sleep Debt

There is debate among researchers as to whether there is such a thing as sleep debt. The Sept 2004 issue of the journal Sleep (not available on-line) contained dueling editorials from two of the world's leading sleep researchers: David F Dinges and Jim Horne. The popular understanding that sleep debt can be accumulated indefinitely (over 20 hours) is clearly wrong and not accepted by the scientists. However, some feel that there is a sleep debt that can amount to under 20 hours. I think it is worth keeping this article in Wikipedia, but it should be apparent that sleep debt is not fully acknowledged by the medical establishment. Carax June 25, 2005

  • The article doesn't present this debate; it only gives one point of view, and presents as facts this set of ideas which as a whole do not seem to be very widely accepted. --Mysidia (talk) 03:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Why should scientific evidence be the only acceptable evidence? If we are going to talk about Neutrality, then in a world where the majority of it's population believes in some form of faith, should we accept more than scientific evidence as proof? Or less? Perhaps "scientific evidence" is but one type of evidence, or not evidence at all?

Certainly this is a joke. Evidence IS scientific or it isn't evidence at all. The article can sputter all day about what the widely-held belief is, but it shouldn't make the claim that anything it says is factual or proven, only that it is a widely-held belief. A scant few hundred years ago, most people believed the Sun went around the Earth, but that didn't make it true. NPOV doesn't mean you give up all your intellectual standards.

[edit] Scientific Backing

A quick Google Scholar search for "sleep debt" reveals a number of relevant scientific studies. Perhaps some of these could be referenced.

[edit] "Typically, for every two hours awake, the average person accumulates a little more than one hour of sleep debt."

Isn't that just a more confusing way to say the average person needs 8 hours of sleep per 24-hour day?

  • Generally in life, and especially scientific research you use the smallest common denominator. You don't say 12/24ths you say 1/2.
    • Well, actually I'd say that this is a better way of saying that approaches such as biphasic and polyphasic sleep are legitimate in some respects. That is, you don't necessarily need 8 hours of sleeping in a single block, which is implied when most people say such. Usurper 05:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
No, it isnt a more confusing way. It says something else entirely. A little more than one hour- not one hour exactly. This tiny difference might mean 9 or 10 hours of sleep, but definitely more than 8.

[edit] Neutrality and Contradiction

I just read the article, looking specifically for NPOV and contradicting arguments, and found neither. Furthermore, both tags tell me to check the talk page, and there is NOTHING about it. Can someone remove these tags? Obviously nobody has cared enough to lodge their complaint about POV or Contradictory statements, so the tags should be removed.

  • They keep popping up between versions, depending on who edits the page. I think it's safer to keep up the neutrality warning in case more pseudoscience makes its way back into the article. However, I just spent a few minutes weeding out the most obvious contradictions and pseudoscience so have taken down the POV warning and added a stub marker. If the article reverts back to its earlier state, I think the POV warning should go back up.
It seems to me that the POV issues of this article lie in the presentation of a clearly debatable topic as scientific fact. The article appears almost as an ongoing debate between a proponent and a critic of the theory. In short, this is just a poorlly written article. If someone want to undertake the task, I suggest a dramatic rewrite of the article as a whole, stressing citation of primary literature. Don't look at me though, I'm too lazy to even sign in right now. On that note, please sign your comments with "~~~~" - User:Shaggorama 09:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
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