Morning

Something I've been wondering about for a while is sleep. We all know I'm not the only person at my age who doesn't sleep enough, and for some reason it's a bad habit that is impossible to shake off.

I remember reading about an experiment where they took a comedian and locked him inside a room, and whenever he was trying to sleep they made sure he couldn't. Mind you, the man had volunteered for it. I can't remember the exact amount of time they kept him awake, but it was... long. The end result was, when they finally let him out of the room, long-deprived of sleep, they could observe drastic changes in his personality. The fact that his mind had had no time to rest - I can't say how it actually affected his brain tissue, I'm no doctor - apparently made this otherwise jolly guy not so jolly at all. In fact his sense of humour was almost gone, and while I haven't heard whether or not the damage was permanent, it lasted for at least a rather long while.
Now, dramatic examples aside, I just wonder how we're all affected in a minor way if day after day we get much less sleep than we're supposed to. How it might give us less energy to cope with whatever each day brings. I know that some people have less need of sleep than others, but all around, it's not a terribly healthy business for those of us who do.

And most of us know it, but aren't doing anything about it. And when I think of how much people at my age or thereabout sometimes drink each week alcohol-wise, I'm wondering that if we don't invent some kind of miraculous life-extender, we'll see a drop in the lifespan of my generation.

Personally I just hope I'll never suffer from clinical insomnia. That's one of the things I fear most.