In the Harvard Nurses' Health study, women who got five or fewer hours

asleep a night gained about six pounds more over the subsequent 16 years than those getting seven a night. Even if that was all due to the difference in sleep, that's still only six pounds for

10,000 plus more hours of sleep.

If even a tiny fraction of that time we spent on diet and exercise,

biking to the nearest farm stand, more weight could have been lost in 16 weeks

than in those 16

years.

Every little bit helps, though, and getting at least seven hours is healthier for you anyway.

The biggest reason to lose sleep over losing sleep is motor vehicle accident risk.

Driving drowsy increases risk of killing yourself and others.

People might think twice about getting behind the wheel after staying away for 48 hours

straight, but even just two weeks of sleeping six hours a night impairs your cognitive

performance as much as pulling two all-nighters in a row.

So, what's the best way to sleep better? Sleeping pills are a non-starter. Those prescribed

even less than 18 pills a year of so-called hypnotics, the class of sleeping pills that

includes Ambien, appear to have triple the risk of dying prematurely. Since up to 10% of the adult

population is prescribed these drugs, if the drugs

really are killing people, that can mean a six-figured death toll every year. Ambians

manufacturer questioned the study, but that's just one of dozens of studies that found

a significant association between sleeping pills and premature death. When the principal investigator

at the Scripps Clinic's

Sleep Center was criticized for reporting alarmingly high death risks from these commonly used

...