Let sleeping dogs lie

Did you read in the paper that They have discovered it is bad for you to have less than seven hours’ sleep a night? Apparently being deprived of sleep can give you anything from cancer, a stroke or heart problems to boils, bunions and haemorrhoids. OK, I exaggerate, but you get the idea: Sleep, Good; Sleeplessness, Bad. Though apparently not. It appears that more than eight hours' sleep a night can actually lead to …well, death. Hmm, not so good. But wait a minute – how accurate is this study? Have They considered that the people who sleep for fewer than seven hours’ a night are spending their time drinking, smoking, visiting prostitutes and generally doing all manner of other things that could lead to disease? Or perhaps these people are lying awake worrying about the early symptoms of illnesses they have already detected? And the sluggards whose sleeping habits end in death – how many of them had slipped into an irreversible coma by the time the researchers came to quantify them? There are just so many variables that this study is pointless, and surely designed just to worry us all into an early grave. All we really need to know is that all of us will die - and some will become ill first. In the meantime, let’s get some sleep.