Sweet Dreams

The following is from Joe Tye’s Spark Plug for February 25, 2005.

Joe has a hypothesis, but it’s a hypothesis based on facts. These are the facts:

Fact 1: The average American is chronically sleep-deprived, to the tune of upwards of an hour per night.

Fact 2: The average American spends between 3 and 4 hours per day watching television.

Fact 3: Long before you become physically dysfunctional, you begin to lose mental and emotional capacities. The first thing to go is usually the ability to think creatively. Shortly thereafter, you lose the capacity to be enthusiastic and optimistic.

Fact 4: People who are sleep-deprived have impaired judgment that causes them to do stupid things such as running up big credit card bills through shopping therapy as a replacement for real joy (debt can put a real damper on love within a household).

Fact 5: Sleep deprivation causes reduced energy levels, resulting in people ignoring their loved ones and not undertaking enjoyable but strenuous activities in favor of less emotionally-taxing activities such as couch vegetation.

Here’s his hypothesis: If that average American would replace just one hour of daily TV watching with one extra hour of sleep, there would be a lot more love, a lot more joy, and a lot more prosperity in this world.

How about it, are you getting enough sleep? I know I’m not.