His work is nothing to lose sleep over

Dr. Charles Czeisler's research documents the dangers of sleep deprivation. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

One morning in 1986, Dr. Charles Czeisler woke up at 4 a.m. on Cape Cod and went out to take photos at sunrise. The photos were for the cover of the journal Science, which was preparing to run an article about how the then 34-year-old scientist had recently proven that light was the most powerful means of resetting the body's circadian clock, the 24-hour biological cycle that has a strong relationship to many things, including sleep.

After taking the photos - which, at dawn, roughly approximated the level of light he'd used in the lab experiment - Czeisler gave a lecture, hopped in his car, and began the long drive back to Boston. The next thing he knew, he was being startled awake by the feel of gravel under his tires.

He had done what an estimated 250,000 Americans will do today - he fell asleep at the wheel. Czeisler reacted in time to correct the car safely, pulled over on the shoulder, and took a nap. When he awoke again, it was in more ways than one.

"That's the point when my consciousness realized the work I was doing in the lab had real-world consequences," said Czeisler, who has now grown up to be a 55-year-old leader in the field of sleep research. "Until that happens to you, you think you're in complete control, there's no way on God's green earth I'm going to fall asleep because it's too dangerous. But the brain, when sleep pressure gets to a certain point, will seize control."

Czeisler, who heads the sleep medicine divisions at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, wears many hats when it comes to what he calls our "cultural sleep disorder."

As a researcher, he's constantly turning out startling statistics on the medical and performance dangers of sleep deprivation. As an industry consultant, he's trying to change the way everyone from factory managers to hospitals to NASA considers the effect of work schedules on safety and productivity. As a public policy advocate, he wants drowsy driving to take its place - legally and culturally - on par with drunken driving.

And as a doctor, he's been fighting the traditions of his own profession, arguing that the famously long shifts of medical interns (often 30 hours) are a hazard both to the patients and the doctors, who he says are far more likely to make a serious mistake, stick themselves with a needle, and get into a car accident on the way home.

If he carried a prescription pad, he could probably just stamp every page with the same remedy: Get more good sleep.

Yet as Czeisler lets go one of his honkingly loud laughs, the kind that would wake anyone, he throws up his arms. While colleagues in his field are applauding his work - he has been recognized with three large honors in recent months, including the lifetime achievement award from the National Sleep Foundation - the opposite is occurring in the larger culture. We don't get sleep, he says, because we don't get sleep.

Each year, the average kid is sleeping 10 minutes less than he or she did the previous year, somewhere between two to four hours less than their counterparts 20 years ago. Czeisler blames much of this on overscheduled parents forcing kids onto their schedules and the increasing presence of computers and television in the late-night lives of children (their blue light suppresses chemicals in the brain that help you fall sleep).

"It will become apparent that many children diagnosed with ADHD have been misdiagnosed when the root cause is not enough sleep," said Czeisler, who did not laugh when he pointed to our newest response - caffeine for kids in the form of energy drinks.

Dr. William C. Dement, an 80-year-old professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and a pioneer in the field of sleep science, says that Czeisler stands out for his ability to recognize the big picture while being careful about the details.

"He has been by far the leading researcher in the area of human circadian function, and coupling that to sleep research," Dement said of his former student. "And he knows how to use that science in practical ways, like the seminal study he did on factory schedules where he was able to significantly improve productivity. What's amazing to me is that his ideas didn't catch on where everybody does it, but we're still operating in an ignorant society."

Czeisler, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall, does not drink caffeine, tries to get between eight and nine hours of sleep a night, and prefers a firm mattress because of back trouble, said the problem with his mission is that it is occurring in a culture that glorifies long hours while claiming it doesn't have time to sleep.

"When you realize how many things it affects, it becomes clear that sleep is drastically undervalued," he said. "It's low-hanging fruit that would allow us to make progress in so many areas."

Hometown: Chicago; lives in Sherborn.

Education: Graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology; at Stanford, he earned a PhD in neuroscience in 1978 and an MD in 1981.

Family: Wife, Dr. Theresa Shanahan, is a pediatrician at Dedham Medical Associates and is on the staff at Children's Hospital and Newton-Wellesley Hospital. They have three children, ages 13, 11, and 9.

Hobbies: Czeisler loves to water ski at his house on East Pond in Maine and play tennis, and has been active in environmental issues, including seven years on the restoration advisory board for the Superfund site at the former Natick Army Labs.