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Are you sleeping at least nine hours each night? If not, you are sleep deprived according to Anoka-Ramsey Community College (ARCC) psychology department professor, Diana Gant. Gant has been a professor of psychology at ARCC for 17 years, but she has been studying sleep even longer. Gant stated, “I started when I was a graduate student and wrote my thesis, then my dissertation, about sleep.” Gant gathers her data in a variety of ways. She uses data from lab studies, statistics and other outside sources. “One thing I’ve done is study the number of traffic accidents in the state right after the shift to daylight savings time in the spring, when most people lose an hour’s sleep,” said Gant, “There’s an 8 percent increase in accidents the day after the time change, and there’s a corresponding decrease in accidents in the fall when people gain an extra hour of sleep.” Gant compares this trend to jet lag, saying that, “The effect can last a week. It isn’t due to loss of sleep, but complications from resetting the biological clock.” Gant’s interest in the study of sleep had changed over time. “When I started I wanted to write about people who got little sleep and remained productive,” said Gant, “The problem was, when my subjects arrived in laboratories and got a chance to sleep in dark, quiet rooms, they all slept for about nine hours. That and other work convinced me that most people suffer from sleep deprivation.” It has been commonly believed that a person requires only 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night, but Gant disagrees. “Nine hours is better,” said Gant, “I know not everyone agrees with me, but that’s what I keep finding. Think of sleep like exercise. People exercise because it’s healthy. Sleep is healthy.” According to Gant, the average person only gets about seven hours of sleep a night. Lack of sleep can cause many problems throughout the day including; depression, or even falling asleep at red lights while driving. Gant states that it is easy to solve the problem of lack of sleep. She recommends staying away from eating or drinking a lot close to bedtime, especially alcohol or caffeine. Make sure the room is dark and quiet, and sleep in a comfortable bed with clean linens.