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The Shorter Your Sleep, the Shorter Your Life: the New Sleep Science (independent.co.uk)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A "catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic" is causing a host of potentially fatal diseases, a leading expert has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Professor Matthew Walker, director of the Centre for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, said that sleep deprivation affected "every aspect of our biology" and was widespread in modern society. And yet the problem was not being taken seriously by politicians and employers, with a desire to get a decent night's sleep often stigmatised as a sign of laziness, he said. Electric lights, television and computer screens, longer commutes, the blurring of the line between work and personal time, and a host of other aspects of modern life have contributed to sleep deprivation, which is defined as less than seven hours a night. But this has been linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, obesity and poor mental health among other health problems. In short, a lack of sleep is killing us.

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  1. Re:Next up by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Federal compensatory time legislation and corresponding rules about accounting for outside-hours work are on my list of major issues. Salaried workers in this country work on average 47 hours, and get paid for only 40; it is time to deal with that.

    I am also considering a 32-hour work week, although this one requires more careful planning and execution, if we are to execute it at all. It should be much easier after deploying Universal Social Security.