Photo by it’s me neosiam on Pexels.com
The tax man is back. Not the one demanding more of our money, but the one wanting more of our time.
Eight hours sleep are no longer enough, says sleep researcher Dan Gartenberg. Eight-and-a-half hours are the new eight hours. Which is news for those of us still digesting the suggestion that eight is the new six.
Yes, I’m a night owl, and if not exactly proud of it, nor am so ashamed of it that the Dan Gartenbergs of this world get a free pass. If I can stay awake on both the bus taking me to work and the one that brings me home, then six hours are doing me just fine, particularly when you consider the alternative.
You see, those extra hours that these experts glibly suggest I condemn to unconsciousness, don’t exist in a vacuum. I must withdraw them from my bank of consciousness in order to cash them in for slumber.
Given a generous estimate of 20 years being left in my life, two and a half hours’ extra sleep a night depletes by 18,250 hours my portfolio of waking experiences – joy, music, travel, food, sport and books. That’s more than two years.
Even if Dan Gartenberg can promise that the extra sleep will extend my life by more than two years to compensate, that’s just his word against a mathematical certainty. And I don’t even know the man.
No, somewhere out there is a point at which extra days gained exceeds sentient pleasures lost. Unless sleep experts want to become even more irritating than ‘morning people’, they need to identify it.
Notepad on Life 
Leave a comment