Rare is the night when I get at least 7 hours of sleep.

I'd say more, but I'm just too tired.

I sleep fabulously.

added to the flannel sheets and 3" foam and it is so warm and snugly I never want to get out of bed when it is cold. My very fluffy, down comforter is the cherry on top. I wish my little dog were still with me since snuggling with her tiny, soft, warm body can't be replaced.

I still have insomnia though....ear plugs, sleep mask, etc. I smoke Indica before bed and 4 hours later when I am awake again. It helps a lot.

I have it on my feet right now...I am always freezing when it is below 70° outside.

part of my life.

So many need a loving home.

My kitty is a snuggler. Sometimes she even wants to sleep inside my pillow case!

is this including naps ?
Is it cumulative sleep hrs?
Counting naps I’m maybe 8+

✌🏻

to get enough sleep. There are any number of books out there on the topic.

I read one perhaps a year ago which described some very interesting research about mild sleep deprivation. It turns out, that if you get a flu shot after a night of insufficient sleep, it probably won't be nearly as effective as if you'd gotten 8 hours. Many other similar studies that prove over and over again getting sufficient sleep matteers.

Most of my life I have gotten adequate sleep, and I'm convinced that's perhaps the most important reason I'm as healthy as I am. Yeah, good genetics is probably in there, but getting plenty of sleep strikes me as key.

More on that for anyone interested:

Studies have been done in humans. I'm pretty sure the book I found that in is Why We Sleep by Matthew P. Walker.

I have been bothered a lot by the fact that nurses these days typically work a 10 or 12 hour shift. And I'm talking scheduled shifts. Either 36 or 40 hours a week in normal times, and of course many of them are working six 12 hour shifts in a row. Even without a pandemic going on, I know I don't want to be treated by a nurse in the 11th hour of his shift, or by a doctor who's been working 36 hours straight. I know one claim about the need for such long hours for interns and residents is that they can follow a patient through. Well, no matter how long you make them work, at some point the shift ends and they go home. And I bet they'd learn a lot more a lot faster if they weren't so constantly sleep deprived.

Tech companies are similar. I once read that the i-phone would probably have come to market a year and a half earlier if the teams working on it had worked normal hours, not the insanity of 100 hour weeks.

I will go back to my conviction that a significant aspect of my annoyingly good health is a lifetime of adequate sleep.

1969-1979. There were lots of times I worked lots of overtime. We didn't always know when we'd finally get off work, and more than once we, the afternoon shift, called up morning shift agents at 3 am to ask them if they'd please come in to work as soon as possible so we could finally go home.

But no one's lives depended on us. Yeah, we might screw up writing a ticket or booking a flight or check a bag to the wrong destination, but no one was actually hurt, or worse yet ever died, because of our mistakes.

In hospitals it's vastly different. I know what it's like to be exhausted and worn out and at the point of not giving a fuck. But I'm not a nurse or any other kind of medical professional. I have a cousin who is a nurse on the east coast. She normally works ER, and truly loves working the ER, but recently she's been assigned a Covid unit. We spoke briefly a few weeks ago, and it was clear she is beyond burned out.

I can't begin to imagine.

Plus, older doctors did their internships when they actually got sleep during a 36 hour shift. Read the book Intern by Doctor X (Alan E. Nourse) which I read when it first came out in 1965. You will notice a lot about the advances in medicine in the decades since, but you should also notice how he was able to get sleep during those long overnights, unlike interns/residents these days.

And that's important. First that the older doctors do not fully understand what has changed over the years, and second is the entire issue of getting adequate sleep. Hell, I've known since high school that doing an overnighter and cramming for a final made no sense at all, and never did it.

I have been preaching the doctrine of Get Plenty of Sleep for decades now. Yeah, I know all too well that there are times when you will be unavoidably deprived of sleep. Such as when you have a new baby in the house. Such as when you have a job that has you working one night scheduled off at 10pm, only the flights run late and you don't get off until 1am, and still have to be back at the airport at 6am, but those are not every day occurrences. And when you're young, you can do it.

Once again, I believe that my lifelong commitment to getting enough sleep has paid off in my excellent health. I'm 72 years old, and I'm constantly astonished and dismayed at the many health issues that most people my age have. What is wrong with them? I ask myself. I do recognize that different genetics matter, but I'm still inclined to think that getting sufficient sleep is huge.

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I suspect many will know what I'm gettin' at . . .



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