Medicine: Insomniacs Work Better

Man spends about eight hours a night sleeping, and is inclined to feel grumpy, and act inefficient, if he gets less than that. Last week two British researchers reported some results of a study that should calm the world's insomniacs. Their reassuring finding: under certain conditions, loss of sleep actually increases efficiency on the job.

At the Applied Psychology Research Unit in Cambridge, Drs. Robert T. Wilkinson and Donald Broadbent got Royal Navy volunteers to go 60 hours without sleep. The test subjects worked for 4½-hour stretches, then got 1½ hours off for a meal and rest—but no sleep. After two wide-awake nights, the sailors still did well at intellectually stimulating or competitive tasks such as playing chess, darts or pingpong. But they tended to nod at routine and tedious jobs, no matter how simple—like checking a manuscript for typists' errors.

In a challenging situation, such as having to do tests in a room kept as noisy as a boiler factory, extra sleep reduced efficiency for some navymen. High strung subjects, after loss of sleep, turned in better-than-usual performances. A full night's sleep seemed to restore their tensions.

The Cambridge scientists still could give no answer to the universal question, "How much sleep do I need?" They could only speak for themselves. Said Wilkinson: "I sleep six hours or less each night." Said Broadbent: "I feel lost if I have less than nine hours."