America Hates Sleep

[packbat]

Yesterday, I was reading about Ramsey Clark in Esquire online. The article is pretty good, but this paragraph struck me:

When it's over, he walks in his slow, steady pace down to the cab. He's been going all day, on a couple hours sleep, barely even eating, but he shows no sign of it. "That was worthwhile," he says.

Reading that, afterwards, I realized that I'd seen this implicit admiration for people who don't sleep elsewhere. John Grisham's "The Firm". Every story about every startup I've ever heard told. Even my advisor, when he was telling me to work harder. I've never even seen a biography say, "He slept eight hours a day".

What is wrong with this place? Studies show that having enough sleep is explicitly tied to all sorts of benefits. Why, then, are the public role models people who barely go to bed?

Comments

Reuters: "Some advice to take to heart -- take a nap "

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect that many people who claim to only sleep a few hours/day are not telling the whole truth, or are not keeping accurate track of their sleep --- as appears also to be the case with respect to calorie consumption, as per Michael Pollan's article in the 28 Jan 2007 NY TIMES Sunday magazine ("Unhappy Meals"):

But perhaps the biggest flaw in this study, and other studies like it, is that we have no idea what these women were really eating because, like most people when asked about their diet, they lied about it. How do we know this? Deduction. Consider: When the study began, the average participant weighed in at 170 pounds and claimed to be eating 1,800 calories a day. It would take an unusual metabolism to maintain that weight on so little food. And it would take an even freakier metabolism to drop only one or two pounds after getting down to a diet of 1,400 to 1,500 calories a day -- as the women on the ''low-fat'' regimen claimed to have done. Sorry, ladies, but I just don't buy it.

In fact, nobody buys it. Even the scientists who conduct this sort of research conduct it in the knowledge that people lie about their food intake all the time. They even have scientific figures for the magnitude of the lie. Dietary trials like the Women's Health Initiative rely on ''food-frequency questionnaires,'' and studies suggest that people on average eat between a fifth and a third more than they claim to on the questionnaires. How do the researchers know that? By comparing what people report on questionnaires with interviews about their dietary intake over the previous 24 hours, thought to be somewhat more reliable. In fact, the magnitude of the lie could be much greater, judging by the huge disparity between the total number of food calories produced every day for each American (3,900 calories) and the average number of those calories Americans own up to chomping: 2,000. (Waste accounts for some of the disparity, but nowhere near all of it.) All we really know about how much people actually eat is that the real number lies somewhere between those two figures.

But getting back to sleep, here's an excerpt from the Yahoo "Oddly Enough" news feed yesterday:

CHICAGO, Feb 12 (Reuters Life!) - Regular naps are good for your heart, researchers said on Monday.

A six-year study of nearly 24,000 Greek adults found those who regularly took midday naps lowered their risk of dying from heart disease by more than a third.

Those who made it a practice of napping at least three times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease compared to non-nappers.

...

Unlike previous studies that have produced mixed findings on the heart benefits of napping, this study controlled for the effect from smoking, diet and exercise. None of the subjects, who ranged in age from 20 to 86, were ill when the study began.

...

Re: Reuters: "Some advice to take to heart -- take a nap "

[packbat.livejournal.com]

I read that nutrition article! And yes, if I were talking about a survey, that certainly would be the most likely explanation. But in the story about Clark, and in "The Firm", it's clear that specific examples of practically-sleepless days/weeks are being described, and (implicitly) praised. And I've known college professors who answer emails instantly at all times of day and night – I don't think that's a fluke.

I don't think I've seen that study on napping before, but I'm not surprised to hear the result. If Greeks are as badly sleep-deprived as I suspect U.S. citizens are, I expect extra sleep at any time would show a handsome benefit.

(Of course, if they aren't, that's even more interesting. But I don't have the data to say.)