The grueling Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT, was first designed in the 1920s by Frederick August Moss, a professor at George Washington University. Originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test for Medical Students, Moss developed the readiness test as a way to reduce high dropout rates in medical schools. The MCAT paved the way for other standardized admissions exams, like the SAT, and the many sleepless nights college students still endure preparing for it. But Moss probably wouldn’t have disturbed this legacy of insomnia: for Moss, a professor of psychology at GWU, sleep was a useless habit.
In November 1925, Popular science The writer Newton Burke described an experiment designed by Moss to assess whether sleep was a “tragic waste of a third of a life’s precious hours.” His study was one of several then-cutting-edge experiments aimed at assessing the effects of insomnia and determining whether humans could be trained to go without sleep altogether.
A century later, the health benefits of sleep are now well documented. Yet, curiously, a corollary to Moss’s central question persists: not whether sleep is a waste of time, but whether there can be too much of it.
A century ago, seven students stayed awake for more than two days
On a weekend in late August 1925, Moss gathered seven undergraduates in Foggy Bottom, GWU’s bustling neighborhood sandwiched between the White House and Georgetown in Washington, DC. Their mission: to stay awake for at least 60 hours, during which time Moss periodically monitored vital signs and reflexes, administered intelligence tests and assigned simple tasks, such as parallel parking a car to test alertness.
Among the volunteers was the aptly named Louise Omwake, just 17 years old and already an exceptional student and athlete. Her classmate, Thelma Hunt, apparently intelligent and fiercely ambitious, had her sights set on a career in psychology. For Omwake and Hunt, the insomnia study was just one adventure in remarkable lives. Both had distinguished careers: Omwake as a pioneer in national education and Hunt as a psychologist, physician and head of department at GWU.
For the next two and a half days, the group of seven traveled the Virginia countryside, playing baseball and singing songs to stay awake, ultimately succeeding in their mission. To summarize Moss’s preliminary findings, Popular scienceBurke wrote: “Too much sleep, like too much drunkenness, may actually be harmful, destroying the activities of the mind and body. »
In the 1920s, many people wondered if we really needed that much sleep.
The obsession with sleep – or rather insomnia – of the 1920s echoed the cultural mood of the era, shaped by a rapidly industrializing America and embodied by ambitious leaders like inventor Thomas Edison who, in an 1889 interview with Scientific Americansaid: “I spend twenty hours a day. I find that four hours of sleep is quite sufficient for all purposes.”
To his credit, Burke remained skeptical of Moss’s findings and other insomnia experiments conducted at the time, including one at the nation’s first sleep research laboratory at the University of Chicago, reported by Popular science in July 1925. Summarizing the results of these experiments, Burke concluded: “Scientific opinion is agreed that as yet no means has been developed for the average man to appreciably reduce his sleep without adverse effect on his health.” »
A century later, we know that sleep is really important
In the century since, scientists have confirmed Burke’s conclusion that sleep is neither a waste of time nor a passive activity. Rather, it is active and essential biological work. But sleep is still poorly understood. Only in the last two decades have scientists had the tools to unravel the biological activity that occurs at the cellular level during sleep.
Specialized laser lights, or optogenetics, can measure and activate neural pathways. And advanced imaging techniques like deep ultrasound can reveal what’s happening in different regions of the brain. Such research has shown that during sleep, the brain consolidates memories, repairs itself, and eliminates toxins, such as beta-amyloid, a protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The immune system recharges during sleep and hormones are sent out to regulate metabolism and cell growth.
While in 1925 some scientists may have been caught up in the popular desire to dismiss sleep, today it is considered essential to health and quality of life. But there may be a twist.
Recent epidemiological analyzes and systematic reviews involving millions of participants have found a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and health outcomes. Too little or too much sleep has been linked to higher risks of illness and premature death. Some studies have found that too much sleep is more associated with poor health outcomes than not enough sleep.
Although the optimal amount of sleep varies by age group, for adults there is an ideal range of between seven and nine hours per night that poses the lowest risk of health problems. Importantly, these findings do not suggest that too much sleep necessarily leads to poor health, but rather that it is correlated with health risks. In other words, sleeping too long may be a warning sign about underlying issues like chronic illness, depression, apnea, or other conditions that cause fatigue or interrupt sleep patterns. Sleeping too long deserves medical attention.
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Recent research also suggests that sleep regularity may be as important as duration. Consistent bedtimes and wake-up times help reduce the risk of health problems. People whose sleep hours vary widely may face higher risks of diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and mood disorders. Good sleep hygiene emphasizes habits that encourage regular bedtimes as well as optimal sleep conditions, such as limiting stimulating screen time before bed and maintaining a dark, cool environment in the bedroom.
Not surprisingly, sleepless nights and marathons, like cramming for a college admissions test or final exam, also disrupt good sleep hygiene and quality sleep. According to The evening starHowever, by the end of the 1925 insomnia study, none of the students “experienced any difficulty falling asleep, although it is generally believed that when a person stays awake for such a long period of time, they have difficulty falling asleep once they go to bed.”
Even though most of us, like Rip Van Winkle, spend more than 20 years of our lives in bed, we now know that sleep is not a “tragic waste” but rather an investment in health, longevity and quality of life. Although too little sleep has been shown to be harmful, the possibility that too much sleep can also be problematic — a warning sign — keeps an aspect of Moss’s original analysis alive.
Thelma Hunt, one of Moss’s star students, went on to earn a doctorate and an MD, eventually reaching Moss’s position as head of GWU’s psychology department, a position she held for 25 years. Among his many contributions to the field of psychology, Hunt was quoted as saying: “All my life I have had an enormous amount of energy, I think largely because of my physiological makeup, so I can do a lot of things, and not burn out right away.” »
Despite the “physiological makeup,” what would have been an irresistible challenge for most teenagers in any century was on a sweltering summer weekend a hundred years ago, when seven undergraduates proudly defied sleep for 60 hours straight. At the time, they could not have known that their sleepless odyssey was at the forefront of a century-long effort to unlock the mysteries of sleep.
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