In my younger years, I regarded sleep as a necessary evil, nature's way of thwarting my desire to cram as many activities into a 24-hour day as possible.
Again, likewise:
As research cited recently in this newspaper's magazine found, “The sleep-deprived among us are lousy judges of our own sleep needs. We are not nearly as sharp as we think we are.”
Studies have shown that people function best after seven to eight hours of sleep, so I now aim for a solid seven hours, the amount associated with the lowest mortality rate.
I don't think it's a case of becoming wiser, or even paying more attention to medical news. You just get older and your body tells you to knock it off. In my yout, I was a typical nightowl, staying up as long as I could and sleeping as late as my schedule allowed; bright-eyed, perky "morning people" annoyed the hell out of me. Now, if I don't get to bed by 10 and get my seven hours minimum, I'm cranky all day. And if I have a restless night, I try to make it up with a quick nap over lunch, which sets me up for another restless night. Ah, the garden of lost youth, eh?
