My adult sleep habits were established in my senior year of college when I got a part-time job at the Bethlehem Globe Times that, three or four times a week, required me to be in the office at 6:30 AM. That's how evening newspapers, which are almost dead, by the way, operate. And since pinochle and hearts games at Muhlenberg College did not routinely end before 2 AM, that game me four hours of sleep at best.
I'm not suggesting this as a lifestyle to everyone, or anyone, for that matter, but it worked for me. I rarely felt tired, didn't even need a cup of coffee to get me going—still don't.
At this point, I should add that the Globe Times sports department was not a haven of healthy habits. My boss, the late great Jack Collins, often sent me out for hotdogs at 7 AM—yes, there was a hotdog shop open at that time, located not far from the radio station where I'm recording this—and those dogs were sometimes washed down with Coca-Cola. That's a story for another time.
My limited sleep habits continued throughout my life. My wife's career as an elementary school teacher wore her out, and she had to be in bed by 10 PM, sometimes earlier. I would sneak in at 1 AM, praying not to wake her, and we would get up at the same time; her after eight hours sleep, myself after five.
Long Sports Illustrated stories written in hotel rooms often required me to stay up almost the entire night before a flight home. Many is the night I filed a story at 5 AM, left a wake-up call with the hotel for 6 AM, and caught a plane at 7 AM. So, now that I'm officially old—no deadlines, no planes to catch, rarely a need to get up at 6 AM, no big worries outside of, you know, looming mortality—yet I still only sleep, like, six hours at most. Usually five.
Sleep experts are pretty uniform in what they consider adequate sleep. Babies should get 12-16 hours—ah, those were the days, huh? Recommended sleep times then gradually diminish; ten hours for individuals 13-18, for example, and adults of any age including my advanced one should get seven or more. I never do, never did.
The difference now is that I get hammered about it. Every day it seems there are stories about the dangers associated with not enough sleep. Insufficient sleep duration is associated with an increased risk of a number of chronic conditions: obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, Alzheimer's, of course.
These warnings about sleep deprivation always come with self-assured prescriptions. "Eliminate stress" is a familiar warning. Yeah, like you snap your fingers and do that. "Stop staring at your screens, either TV or laptop, close to bedtime!" Yeah, like you can snap your fingers and do that. All kinds of sites offer all kinds of sleep aids: lemon balm, sage, camomile tea. The 3-3-3 rule is also popular: avoid intense exercise three hours before bedtime, have your last meal three hours before bedtime, and stay away from caffeine after 3 PM.
For those of us who get limited sleep, we're in good company. The late Kobe Bryant, whose energy was off the charts, once told me that he slept four hours total, broken up into two two-hour sleeps. Former President Bill Clinton said he learned in college that, "great men require less than five hours of sleep per night," and considering himself a great man, he adopted that. Barack Obama was also reportedly a five-hours-a-night guy. And now we have, of course, the Insomniac in Chief, who has stated he sleeps from 1 AM to 5 AM. That's it. Look, I think it's possible to get by on that schedule, I just don't think it's ideal for formulating foreign policy.
