Do you get too little sleep?

A British study of 10,000 people over 17 years found that their heart disease death rates doubled when they went from seven hours of a sleep a night to less than five. The researchers dialed out all kinds of other factors that could have affected the outcome. Still, here are some observations beyond what I said about this on the air Tuesday:

• The 10,000 were all government workers. Maybe government workers are different from other people. I mean, apart from having more job security.
• The 10,000 were all Brits. Maybe they have some "pre-existing condition" that predisposes them to having a heart attack from fatigue (upper lip rigidity, maybe.)

Since my profession has required me to wake up between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. for 30 of the past 37 years, it won't surprise you that I am keenly interested in sleep research. An Army study in the 1980s was particularly intriguing. It found that soldiers tested after two nights of limited sleep actually did better than usual. But after three nights of only a few hours of sleep, they started to make a lot of mistakes. It's also interesting that one study after another has concluded that you can't "catch up" on sleep. What makes this so fascinating is that we all have known the pleasure of sleeping in on a day off after a sleep-deprived week. If it doesn't help, why does it feel so good? The answer might be one of the following:

• The researchers are wrong and should get more rest.
• It has something to do with how they define benefit. Maybe you benefit psychologically by having more dreams, but not physically from the extra sleep hours. 

I'm the only on-air "cast member" of Sunrise who has routinely worked earlybird shifts before. My advise to the others is to schedule a two hour to three hour nap every afternoon and then get four to five hours at night. The human body can and does get used to sleeping in two increments. And you benefit psychologically from being up and about between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. when your loved ones are home from work or school. I don't know how much credence my colleagues give advice from someone with deep bags under his eyes. But I've had them since my twenties, when a doctor actually accused me of lying about my drinking. (I told him I sometimes went weeks without drinking because I didn't care for it as much as most people do. It was, and is, the truth, but he didn't believe me, and cited the bags under my eyes.) Anyway, that's my advice. Sleep on it.