I have mentioned sleep 38 times before on the blog. Just search for it, go ahead. 38 hits out of about 650 posts. Which means that just under 6% of the time I am posting about sleep. That seems disproportionately large, doesn’t it? I mean given the array of topics that I could be writing about? I love it, I will admit it. I’m addicted to it, actually. Nikki is no better. Anyway. Here’s another post about sleep.

First, a really good article on Damn Interesting that talks about how the invention of the light bulb is probably causing a lot of our health problems today. The idea is our body sort of needs and expects darkness and rest, but we fight that with light and awake time. The end result is getting sick, basically.

Then, an article that fits neatly in with that, a story about a father and daughter who suffer from a “genetic condition” where their internal body clocks are moved forward and they can’t sleep in. They go to bed by around 6:30 or 7:30 at night and wake up at 3:30am or so. Now, I’m not a science-feller here but really, does this sound like a genetic problem? It sounds, well, awesome. It sounds like any typical farmer’s schedule from the turn of the century to me. They themselves admit it’s not really that bad, they have adapted to the schedule so well they don’t often notice it at all.

As much as Clay and Bethany like the benefits of more time in the morning, there are downsides. Clay has to take caffeine so he won’t fall asleep behind the wheel at night. Bethany misses out on evening events.

Well, call me an idiot, but basically everyone does that. Taking caffeine to stay awake while driving is called coffee, and staying up late to attend events in the evening makes me very very very tired. Anyway, there you go. Soon we will “cure” ourselves of this sleep disease altogether.

Which brings me to the next link: a sleep disorder drug causes people to sleep-eat, sleep-drive, etc. The shocker here is that people who have trouble sleeping take a drug to help them sleep, and then find themselves doing things in their drug-induced sleep. What a strange turn of events that is, eh?

I’m not making light of people who can’t sleep, I’m well aware that I am certainly far from that category of unfortunates who have trouble sleeping at night. I know I feel crappy when I don’t get enough sleep. But I am a little skeptical of taking drugs for too many of life’s ailments. I can’t help but wonder how many of these prescriptions would be unnecessary if the patients were exercising enough and eating better, for instance? Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that, I guess. Just wait for the first lawsuit, though. Maybe a little Ambien murder, or Ambien adultery? Way cool defense for the trial….