SLEEP DEPRIVED OR WAKING UP?!

I hear almost daily from someone who is feeling "sleep-deprived," complaining that they do not get enough sleep, and that typically means they wake up after 4 or 5 hours into the night.

This is from a piece on the Huffington Post called: "Is Short Sleep A Big Bad Wolf?", written by Daniel F. Kripke, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus and co-Director of Research at Scripps Clinic Viterbi Family Sleep Center:

"Manufacturers of sleeping pills provided most of the initial funding for The National Sleep Foundation (NSF), an organization devoted largely to issuing public proclamations about sleep. A public relations firm for the makers of Ambien bragged on the internet about their role in a NSF campaign to raise insomnia to its deserved level of a national public health crisis. Directed in part by agents of the Ambien manufacturer, this campaign was successful in increasing new prescriptions for sleep medications. Ambien attained 30 percent of the sales in the first year. Later, NSF campaigns about alleged dangers of insufficient sleep in children were followed by a huge increase in sleeping pill consumption by children."

"Sleep doesn't help if your soul is tired."
(Arab proverb)