• Chapter One: Learning About The Power Of Sleep: How Much Sleep Do You Get
• Are you getting enough sleep?
• The Power of Sleep
• Sleep Disorders
• Should we place more value on sleep
• Learning About Sleep

Even when we're exhausted and give in to our body's demands for rest, sleep can be elusive. Being stressed, harried, and hurried can make it difficult for us to fall asleep or stay asleep. Or we may be struggling with one of more than eighty disorders of the sleeping/waking state that have been identified by sleep researchers.

In 1995 a Gallup poll found that 49 percent of American adults were suffering from insomnia and other sleep-related disorders, a 15 percent increase since 1991. According to many medical specialists, sleep disorders collectively constitute the number one health problem in America. The National Sleep Foundation attributes this to the increasingly frantic pace of life, work pressures, and an aging population.

Thirty million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, or temporary cessation of breathing, a potentially life-threatening disorder. If you have a serious case of sleep apnea and take a sleeping pill or drink too much alcohol on a given night, you might well induce the longest rest of all--you could die in your sleep. Astonishingly, 95 percent of people with sleep disorders are undiagnosed and untreated, and must struggle through the day feeling unmotivated and exhausted.

For example, a businessman, asked to testify in a public hearing held by the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, described his intolerable life before finally being diagnosed and treated for sleep apnea: "I was experiencing constant daytime drowsiness. I would fall into a deep sleep for short periods during meetings, conversations, and public functions. At times, I could awaken and make a very inappropriate comment only to realize that I was commenting on a dream I had just experienced. My associates began to question my mental stability.... It was my practice in those days to carry a large pin or penknife with which I would stab myself in the leg, arm, or hand just to stay awake in meetings and while driving. I was removed from three successive jobs within a year and a half. My income was reduced by 85 percent and my savings were all used up."

The direct costs of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation for 1990 alone were estimated at $15.9 billion. Indirect costs, in terms of productivity and accidents, were said to be $150 billion. Neither of these figures takes into account the incalculable costs of suffering, family dysfunction, and the loss of human life.

A young mother whose daughter died from sudden infant death syndrome, which is linked inextricably to sleep, stated: "The day after Christmas I found [her] dead in her bassinet. No words can adequately describe the shock, horror, and pain of a parent at such a moment. To hold the cold stiff body of your infant offspring is to receive one unexpected blow, your own future deleted.... To think that this repeats itself seven thousand times per year, one baby every hour ..."

Even though half of American adults have trouble sleeping, physicians rarely ask their patients how they sleep. Less than 1 percent of case histories taken by doctors during routine physical examinations even include a mention of sleep. This is alarming because so many people are suffering needlessly. Do you ever have difficulty sleeping? Might you have a sleep disorder?