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- <text id=90TT3415>
- <title>
- Dec. 17, 1990: From The Publisher
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Dec. 17, 1990 The Sleep Gap
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 27
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Brrrriiiing! That's the alarm clock going off, and now that
- everyone's wide awake, let's talk about sleep. Nobody can do
- without it, and most people--including journalists at TIME--don't get enough. While writing this week's cover story on
- sleep deprivation, associate editor Anastasia Toufexis realized
- "how little sleep I get--typically six to seven hours." For
- this story, she got even less, pulling an all-nighter to meet
- a deadline. As TIME's Business editor for three years, Charles
- Alexander says he was "notorious for staying at work all night
- and grabbing a few hours of sleep in my office." His record: 78
- hours on the job with 13 hours of intermittent naps. Today, as
- Sciences editor, Alexander enjoys more regular hours, but his
- new office still has a couch, just in case.
- </p>
- <p> Delving deeper with experts into the mysteries of sleep,
- reporter-researcher Janice Horowitz became self-conscious about
- what is usually a natural act. "The minute my head hit the
- pillow, I began wondering about which stage of sleep I was
- approaching," she says. "I was actually watching myself trying
- to doze off." Joan Menschenfreund, who coordinated the story's
- photography, tries to cure occasional sleeplessness by watching
- TV. She's careful to pick soporific fare: "I sometimes get so
- involved in the program that I'm more wide awake than ever." And
- some think that if they absolutely, positively can't sleep,
- then they might as well get some work done. Reporter-researcher
- Linda Williams pays bills in the wee hours and vacuums her
- apartment (poor neighbors). Steve Hart, who designed the
- accompanying charts on sleep rhythms, has even been known to
- replace the grout around his bathroom tiles after midnight.
- It's not getting to sleep that bothers associate art director
- Ina Saltz; it's what happens to her in the middle of the night.
- She sometimes talks aloud in her sleep with such intensity that
- it wakes her up and her husband as well.
- </p>
- <p> After speaking to medical sources and learning about the
- dire effects of missing sleep, correspondent James Willwerth
- began going to bed an hour earlier. "Now," he reports, "I'm
- happy to greet the day for the first time in my life." His
- campaign to prevent midday yawns is less successful. He tried
- stretching out in his office at TIME's Los Angeles bureau one
- afternoon. Colleagues kept bursting in the door, he grumbles,
- "unaware that a scientific experiment was in progress."
- </p>
- <p>-- Louis A. Weil III
- </p>
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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