submission - Independent Pilots Association

Well, there's an ideal time to sleep and then everything else is less than ideal.
Sometimes it's devastatingly less than ideal.
WeII, how much so? If you had an opportwtity to sleep during the dny and you were
giuen an 9-hour sleep opportunity, could you expect to get I hours of sleep during that
opportunity?
No, I'd say absolutely not. lf that happened, it would be an incredible exception.
There's a ton of evidence on that also.
Hoza about if you were getting a L0 hour sleep opportunity?
No, I don't think so. There have been a lot of studies on sleep reversal. You
simply reverse the sleep period and this is now a model of insomnia. lf you have
to sleep in the daytime, you have insomnia in effect. The ideal time to sleep if
you have a stable circadian rhythm is to stay near the circadian rhythm.
The t hours of ideal sleep, is it possible from your studies Vou can nail down any specific
9-hour period or is it aariable for indittiduals?
Well, it may vary a little bit. Within a very narrow range I wouldn't say....l would
say for most people, it's from 1 1 - 12 PM to 7 - 8 AM. For the vast majority,
that's the ideal sleep period. People will ask why they are the exception, but
you're not dealing with exceptions here.
- When you're forced to haae to slerp if you're flying at night and you're sleeping in the
day, I guess what you're really saying is that the chances are you're going to become
somewhat sleep depriaed oaer time.
That's right.
And so the only zoay you correct that, no mntter hozu much time you are getting to sleep,
Vou're still going to be somsu,hat sleep deprioed. So the only zaay you're going to break
tlnt cucle is periodicnlly if yott haoe a certain amount o-f tinte o-ff and you sleep during
zuhnt núght be considered your nornnl sleep period to restore that.
Well, at the present time that really is the only effective way. I think that we take
the position that there's never an adjustment to that type of schedule. You
refened to night duty...and you would think that if a person did it all the time they
ought to adjust, ..but all the studies always show impairment in sleep loss.
Dr. Dettrct7t, . . . ,L,e're really at the point nozt, ultere ue're goirtg lta¡ond the ¡:ltilosophy
nnd it'e're tn¡ing to pttt our finger on rutmeric -aalues. Our pos;!ion nt lenst _front tlrc
¡tilots' stañ¡toittt , is tlnt lL'e see tl:r need for n l}-hour sleqt oprlort unity hntt,ing thnt
tlrc o¡t¡:ctrttmitq nmr¡ not nltt,nvs be nt tlrc best time of tlrc ,1.u¡. I\-e're.fncing nt intlustnr
¡tositiott thnt is lookirtg.for I hours its tlrc mininnnn. Our positiort is ¡tredicntetJ on tlrc