[makeitdouble]

I get your point, but how many people are currently getting less than 5 hours a day of sleep, and more importantly, don't think it's an issue that is impacting their health ?

I'd imagine newborn parents would fall into that category for instance, and I never met anyone who just thought not sleeping isn't a big deal and it will all be fine.

[hattmall]

Pretty much everyone in professional services for major corporations fits this bill. Working for the big 4 and getting 5 hours of sleep is pretty much impossible. Adderall is essentially a requirement for everyone. Cocaine and Xanax for the more adventurous. That's not even getting into the actual finance companies and investment banks etc.

Same for emergency services in any major city or manufacturing facility. 24 on 48 off pretty much guarantees an all-nighter every 3 days. Then you can't really go to sleep when you get off at 7AM the next morning, because you need to get a good nights sleep on the second night because your next shift starts at 7AM.

I don't know how that works for your brain, but after the first couple months you just seem to adapt and your not tired all the time like you were in the beginning.

[rramadass]

>how many people are currently getting less than 5 hours a day of sleep, and more importantly, don't think it's an issue that is impacting their health ?

That is precisely the point. The insidiousness of Sleep Deprivation is well known. Sleep has multiple stages and some of them (eg. REM) are more important then others; thus it is the Quality of Sleep rather than the Quantity which actually matters (this is the main reason people sleep over a spectrum of hours rather than any fixed point; the body decides the amount of "restorative sleep" needed and 8 hours is just a heuristic average). Ever since all sorts of "Visual Display Terminals(VDTs)" like TVs, Computer terminals, Electronic/Neon billboards, Smartphones, Tablets etc. became commonplace Sleep Quality has suffered drastically (there is a direct correlation between VDT exposure and Sleep Quality). Almost all IT workers (in particular; Programmers) are sleep deprived. With the explosion of Smartphone/Tablet ownership Sleep Deprivation has become commonplace. I am beginning to see young children as young as 10 years have dark circles under their eyes!

Our Society and Economic Systems needs to be changed to accommodate our current Scientific knowledge about our Mind/Body w.r.t. Sleep/Exercise. The Human organism is highly adaptable and resilient but only upto a point.