Tony Cunningham

provide all sides of the argument (reviewers are partly to blame for not calling him on that). But his efforts to translate a complicated topic for a lay audience is commendable with a basic message of "Sleep is Good", (I don't buy the harm done by the book argument at all) 3/

I won't argue he oversimplified, but I agree with the morale of the story. My bigger issue is the tone of the blog. This is clearly not written to engage in a scientific discussion of debatable points (which is what they are). It's interesting he uses the term "scaremongering" 4/

hi! I'm the author of that essay. I'm down to engage in a scientific discussion of debatable points. Let me know if I got anything wrong in my essay, I will correct it.

I'll start with sleep deprivation does cause death as made evident by animal models (obviously can't test this experimentally in humans) Everson, C. A., Bergmann, B. M., & Rechtschaffen, A. (1989). Sleep deprivation in the rat: III. Total sleep deprivation. Sleep, 12(1), 13-21.

If I get a chance I'll try to take a look back through and highlight other things, but as a sleep researcher and clinical psychologist, I would say TSD is last resort, not a first line treatment. We don't know how it works, so we don't know what it does long term. Obviously, some

sleep researchers and clinicians might disagree with me on that one, hence the debate.

genuinely curious if you have you ever prescribed sleep deprivation and whether it worked / what were the side effects

Nope, the only instance in which I'd potentially consider it is with someone acutely suicidal, but suicidality is actually a pretty acute state and I'd suggest a night of sleep first. I do think it's a great area for further exploration (read an article where TSD + light therapy