This is not the usual state for me, but I am currently suffering from serious sleep deprivation. Despite the addition of some magical medical assistance to insure the quality of my sleep, somehow I just can’t catch up. I have very good sleep hygiene (I go to bed and get up at the same time each night and morning, have rarely done anything in bed except for, um, the two things beds are for, follow all the recommendations about no caffiene after noon etc. etc.). Basically, I remain sleep deprived because I’m busy and keyed up and take some time to unwind from all of that–I’m sure it’s similar to many of you.
Sleep deprivation, according to All Known Science, is very bad for you and is also endemic in the United States. MOST people are sleep deprived. I keep up on Sleep News in general, especially after taking the ginormous psych 101 class at Cornell my freshman year (it has 2000 people in it, you can imagine that’s some high learning quality and good value for money, snark snark, but that’s another story for another day) and reading the professor’s sleep book. Like most people, I find myself less able to solve problems, less patient, and less kind when I have not had enough sleep. How, I wonder, does this country function if ALL of us, or nearly all, are behaving this way?
