Health: Drowsy America

At 7 a.m. or 6 or maybe even 5, the blare of the alarm breaks the night, and another workday dawns. As an arm gropes to stop the noise and the whole body rebels against the harsh call of morning, the thought is almost always the same: I have to get more sleep. That night, after 17 or 18 hours of fighting traffic, facing deadlines and racing the clock, the weary soul collapses into bed once again for an all-too-brief respite. And just before the slide into slumber, the nagging thought returns: I have to get more sleep.

Millions of Americans make this complaint, but how many do anything about it? Sleep is a biological imperative, but do people consider it as vital as food or drink? Not in today's rock-around-the-clock world. Not in a society in which mothers work, stores don't close, assembly lines never stop, TV beckons all the time, and stock traders have to keep up with the action in Tokyo. For too many Americans, sleep has become a luxury that can be sacrificed or a nuisance that must be endured.

To some night owls, the very idea of spending more than 20 years of one's life in idle snoozing is appalling. Listen to Harvey Bass. Between a job as a computer-systems manager in New York City and free-lance consulting, he gets no more than five hours of sleep a night and sometimes only two. He admits that the schedule occasionally leaves him with a "tingling around my head." Even so, he says, "if I live a normal life span, I will have lived 20% more than the average person because I'm awake."

That may sound like an attractive exchange, but scientists are increasingly making the case that forgoing rest is a foolish and often perilous bargain. In fact, evidence is mounting that sleep deprivation has become one of the most pervasive health problems facing the U.S. Researchers have not proved conclusively that losing sleep night after night directly causes physical illness, but studies show that mental alertness and performance can suffer badly. "Sleepiness is one of the least recognized sources of disability in our society," declares Dr. Charles Pollak, head of the sleep-disorder center at Cornell University's New York Hospital in Westchester County. "It doesn't make it difficult to walk, see or hear. But people who don't get enough sleep can't think, they can't make appropriate judgments, they can't maintain long attention spans."

Such mental fatigue can be as threatening as a heart attack. Recent evidence indicates that drowsiness is a leading cause of traffic fatalities and industrial mishaps. "Human error causes between 60% and 90% of all workplace accidents, depending on the type of job," observes biological psychologist David Dinges of the University of Pennsylvania. "And inadequate sleep is a major factor in human error, at least as important as drugs, alcohol and equipment failure." Other research suggests that sleep loss contributes to everything from drug abuse to poor grades in school.