If you have ever missed a night of sleep or have had a rough night of little to no sleep at all, then you more than likely know how tragic it can be to have to get up the next day for work or school and feel like you are not yourself.
For most of us, if we miss a few hours of sleep one night because we are up late trying to complete a deadline project or because we are watching television or are out with friends, it seems like no big deal.
However, after time, sleep deprivation catches up to you.
You will often hear of people who feel groggy while they are at work or who, worse yet, are sleepy as they are driving to their job.
This is the worst kind of feeling that you could have.
Studies have linked sleep deprivation to all sorts of things that are horrible for you from a shortened life span to fatal car accidents.
A few summers ago, I was driving to the beach on a major highway.
It was a sunny, quiet day and there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road.
As I was driving, I could see the traffic that was heading in the opposite direction on the other side of the highway just past the divider.
That was when I noticed something strange.
I saw an older model, gray car with an elderly man behind the wheel driving past me in the opposite direction.
In the next instant, as we were getting ready to pass each other, I saw him and his vehicle drift off the side of the road and into a ditch.
I slowed my car down and saw that the couple of motorists who had been driving behind him had already pulled off and were going to attend to the man.
It turns out that he had fallen asleep at the wheel! I shudder to think of what might have happened if there had been more motorists on the highway or if there had been someone stopped on the side of the road where his car ran off.
Thankfully, he was OK- just shaken up a bit.
But even the best of us are subject to falling asleep while driving no matter what time of the day or night it is.
In a slightly different incident, when I was in high school, the assistant coach for our track team didn't show up for practice one day after school.
When she showed up a few days later, you could tell that her face had been badly bruised, and she was limping a little.
Shocked, we all crowded around her to ask her what had happened.
As it turns out, my assistant track coach had gone to a friend's house a few nights prior and had stayed until pretty late.
She knew that she was exhausted when she had left her friend's house but didn't think anything of it before she climbed into her car.
While she was driving along the highway late at night, she fell asleep at the wheel.
According to her, she had been asleep at the wheel for several minutes before her car struck a guardrail on the highway at a high rate of speed.
Luckily, she wasn't hurt too badly; and she was able to walk away from the accident.
However, she gave us all a warning to never drive when you are tired.
She only wished that she had listened to her body and slept at her friend's house before attempting to drive home.