Sleep and Sleep Hygiene

So I had to get up for my last 9:30 am class today. This makes me think 2 things:

1. I had to be up by the ungodly hour of 8:20-ish to properly get ready and then commute to campus, and
2. Since when is 8:20 2x a week too early? In high school, I had to be up by 6:30 am EVERYDAY!

That got me thinking about sleep, and how important it is. I think that people with certain mental health issues need sleep more than others, that our medicines make us ridiculously tired, and also that you can tell a lot about a person from their sleep patterns. Constantly awake and productive? Must have anxiety. Need to sleep 12 hours a day? Depressed. And so on.

I'm just so damn tired all the time, even though I get, on average, 8-10 hours of sleep each night.

According to the National Sleep Foundation:

• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are caused by drowsy drivers each year. (That is about 1.5% of all crashes.) These crashes result in more than 1,500 fatalities and 71,000 injuries and result in an estimated $12.5 billion in diminished productivity and property loss (Knipling and Wang, 1996).
• Before Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb, people slept an average of 10 hours a night; today Americans average 6.9 hours of sleep on weeknights and 7.5 hours per night on weekends (2002 Sleep in America poll).
• Sleep deprivation and sleep disorders are estimated to cost Americans over $100 billion annually in lost productivity, medical expenses, sick leave, and property and environmental damage (National Sleep Foundation).

What do you think?