Anyone else feeling a bit sleepy today?
Well, you’re not alone. As working adults, it seems like we spend most of our lives walking around in a daze of tiredness. And those 8 hours of sleep we are supposed to be getting most nights? Forget about it. We count ourselves lucky if we manage 6 or 7.
But how do you know when your tiredness has turned into something more serious like sleep deprivation? Well, it turns out there is a simple test to check and all your need is a spoon and a metal tray. Easy peasy!
The Sleep Onset Latency Test was developed by researcher Nathaniel Kleitman at the University of Chicago and it’s really quite simple.
Dr.Mosely writes in The Mail:
“It’s based on solid science”.
To test it out for yourself here’s what you have to do.
“Lie down in a quiet, darkened room in the early afternoon clutching a spoon, which you hold over the edge of the bed. Then, you put a metal tray on the floor by your bed, then close your eyes”.
The test is designed to see how long it takes you to drift off to sleep. Once you nod off the spoon will fall from your limp hand to the metal tray below.
It should make a loud enough noise to wake you up (unless you’re a very heavy sleeper).
When you wake up all you have to do is check how much time has elapsed since you closed your eyes (make sure you check the time at the start of the experiment).
If you fell asleep within five minutes you are severely sleep-deprived. If you dropped the spoon ten minutes after you closed your eyes then you have trouble getting a full night’s rest. If it took 15 mins or more for you to wake up then it looks like you’re well rested and have had enough sleep.
So there you have it. We’re off to hunt down a metal tray and a quiet room to try this out.
