Barely a few days go by without some news story about sleep. How much, how little, sleep apnea, dream interpretation, snoring, teeth grinding, night sweats, the right bed, the correct pillow, how to fall asleep, how to stay asleep, the best non-habit-forming medications.
Sleep is an equally essential to air, water, and food. Unfortunately, most of us simply do not get enough of it. Adequate sleep is crucially important for workers in transportation such as pilots, air traffic controllers, train engineers, truck drivers. The Air Force conducted a test beginning in 2002 to see how sleep deprivation affected their pilots. Of the several hundred participants they found almost all became delirious after 3 to 4 days without sleep. The conclusion? Without adequate sleep, there was a high probability the pilots would crash their jets.