The State Of The Union Is Drowsy, Given The Amount Of Sleep We Get

It’s often said that we spend one-third of our lives sleeping. Would that it were so! In a Gallup poll, two-thirds of Americans reported sleeping less than eight hours on a typical night. That’s too bad, given recent medical research that finds adequate sleep is even more important to health than had previously been known. (How long will it be before the health police set up picket lines outside the studios of late-night TV shows?)

When asked how many hours of sleep they usually get at night, 6 percent of adults stifled their yawns long enough to say it’s four hours or less.