Sleepiness

Stuart Buck notes, correctly, how devastating the loss of sleep is to all sorts of things.  During my own annus horribilis (October 2006 - December 2007) I couldn't have slept more than 5 hours average per night during any week in that period (except for the 5 days off I took in August, 2007), divided between rare full nights of sleep and all-night firedrills.   Putting entirely aside the fact that my efficacy in my job dropped off one fairly shallow cliff at about midnight and another, much steeper, cliff at 3 or 4 am (to near uselessness), that nightmarish period had a lasting effect on my already prone-to-fat metabolism, which I haven't even come close to fighting off now a full year later.   I don't really begrudge the fact that society has organized itself in such a way that these hours are thought to be laudable for a young professional, but there is no doubt that my constitution, at least, was no match for them.