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page 3..........HAVEN'T BEEN
SLEEPING WELL
by Robert Sullivan, Reporting by Anne Hollister
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In the two months that I spent researching this article,
I found case histories of all the major sleep ailments - just by talking
to my friends.
John, an investment banker, has restless-leg syndrome, which causes him
to jolt awake, fall back asleep, then twitch awake again a half dozen
times a night. Mike, a public defender, has a truly god-awful time sleeping,
He suspects it's stress-related insomnia. Joe, who took the pictures for
this story, grinds his teeth so forcefully it wakes him. I've heard Brooks
snore, and I'm sure he's one of the 20 million Americans who have apnea,
or partially blocked airways.
My wife, Luci, shares my problem: We fall asleep fine, then wake at three
or four in the morn-ing. Luci's sister, Marie, has the opposite problem.
She tosses and turns for an hour before nodding off, then has trouble
waking up. For me, during the hour of the wolf - that hour before dawn,
said to be the longest of the day - the pain of sleepless-ness can be
unbearable. It's a maddening ache that makes me feel helpless. I'm lying
there, staring at blackness. I'm trying to sleep, and the very effort
is counterproductive. Yesterday becomes today, and it's time to get up.
If you want to find a starting point for all this, travel back to 1879.
That was when a famous short-sleeper named Edison perfected the light
bulb. Over time, downtowns began to bustle after dark, shift work burgeoned,
and reading into the night - then listening to the radio, then watching
TV - became part of the American way of life. We altered our circadian
rhythms; sleep and well-being fell victim.
In 1910, Americans averaged nine hours of sleep per night. Today, it's
seven. "Edison started it," says Columbia- Presbyterian's Kavey.
"Now we have a hundred TV channels, all-night stores, the Internet.
There's great temptation not to sleep."
Sometimes it's not just the temptations, it's the very things that define
our lives, like the need to work. There are 20 million night-shift workers
in the U.S. who are forced out of their natural rhythms. "It's an
inherently dangerous situation," says Dinges, "particularly
if their companies are dealing with a lethal substance or something that
affects public health and safety."
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