National Security & Defense

I've been reading books about sleep for at least three decades now, and they all agree that most of us don't get enough sleep. Worse, the consequences of sleep deprivation are routinely minimized or ignored.

One recent book reported on research that showed, among other things, that if you get a flu vaccination on a day after you haven't gotten a full eight hours of sleep, your body doesn't create the antibodies needed to make the vaccine fully effective. Duh. That sort of thing may be a huge factor in why so many people report they got the vaccination and still got the flu. Because they were sleep deprived in the first place.

Most of my life, and I'm 70 now, I've made it an important goal to get enough sleep. Mostly I've been successful. Oddly enough, I'm the healthiest person I know. Even or perhaps especially at my age.

Alas, there's an attitude that "You can sleep when you're dead". Unfortunately, if you are chronically sleep deprived you may well be dead a whole lot sooner.