不睡觉超人:一天当做两天用

Some 'superheroes' seem able to exist on very little sleep -- are they fooling themselves?

Does it only take five hours of sleep to fuel the juggle? We recently posted about one woman who rises at 5 a.m. and often ends her day at midnight. She needs all that time to squeeze in a day of work and caring for her family.

It's a familiar timeline for many of us. Can't fit everything into your day? Just make the day longer!

Some superheroes seem to survive this way indefinitely. An ad-agency founder profiled in the latest issue of Inc., Jordan Zimmerman, rises at 3:30 a.m., works out before work, takes three of his four kids to school, works flat-out all day, gets home for dinner and bedtime with the family and then works until midnight. During speeches to college students, he sometimes asks them why they like to sleep late on weekends. 'Why would you sleep when that's your time to live?' he asks. 'Sleeping isn't living. You sleep when you die.'

In other cases, entire companies assume a no-sleep culture. In James B. Stewart's 2005 book 'DisneyWar,' Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg was said to sleep only a few hours every night, reporting to his office by 5 a.m. He sometimes scheduled major meetings for 7 a.m. on Sunday, Mr. Stewart reported. Not surprisingly, Mr. Katzenberg insisted that all the meeting rooms be stocked with Diet Coke.

People now sleep about 20% less than they did a century ago, the noNPRofit National Sleep Foundation estimates. But as I have written, most people need seven to nine hours of sleep. Without it, we snack or drink caffeine or exercise to compensate. And we get sleepy. The foundation's 2008 poll of 1,000 Americans found 36% are drowsy or fall asleep when they are driving; 29% become very sleepy at work, and 20% have lost interest in sex because they are just too tired. Researchers blamed part of the problem on overlong work hours.

Readers, are you one of these high-energy, no-sleep jugglers? Can some people actually function this way indefinitely, leaving the rest of us lagging behind the evolutionary curve?

一些“超级英雄”似乎可以每天只睡极少的时间──还是他们在骗自己？

只睡五个小时就够补充精力了吗？本报不久前刊登的一篇文章说，一位女士每天早上5起床，而午夜之后才上床睡觉。她确实需要挤出这么多时间来完成工作、照顾家人。

我们当中的许多人对这种生活都不算陌生。每天总有搞不完的事？那就让每一天变长一些吧。

一些超级英雄似乎可以日复一日地过着这样的生活。最新一期商业杂志《Inc.》报导称，广告公司联席创始人乔丹．齐莫尔曼(Jordan Zimmerman)每天早上3点半起床，先健身，再工作，然后送四个孩子中的三个去上学，接下来再高效完成全天的工作，回家吃晚饭并等家人就寝后再独自工作到子夜时分。他有时候会在向大学生发表演讲时问他们为什么要在周末赖床不起。他问道：你们为什么要把本可以好好活着的时光睡过去？他说，睡觉不是活着，你死了自然会睡了。

在其他案例中，整个公司界都在鼓吹不睡觉文化。作家詹姆斯．B．斯图尔特(James B. Stewart)在2005年出版的《迪斯尼战争》(DisneyWar)中写道，迪士尼制片公司掌门人杰弗瑞．卡森伯格(Jeffrey Katzenberg)每天就睡两三个小时，早上5点就现身办公室了。斯图尔特说卡森伯格有时候会在周日早7点安排开大会。卡森伯格坚持将所有的会议室都放上健怡可乐，这一点也就不足为奇了。

非营利机构美国国家睡眠基金会(National Sleep Foundation)估算，人们现在的睡眠时间比100年前少了约20%。不过，就像我曾经写过的那样，大多数人每天需要睡七到九个小时。如果睡眠不足，我们通过吃零食、喝咖啡因饮料或运动来强打精神。但我们还是会昏昏欲睡。该基金会2008年针对1000名美国人的调查发现，36%的人在开车时犯困或睡着，29%的人在上班时瞌睡得厉害，还有20%的人会因为太累而变得“性趣”全无。研究人员认为超时工作是造成人们睡眠不足的原因之一。

各位读者，你也是这种精力充沛的不睡觉超人吗？这种人是否能够永远这么几乎不停工地运转，将我们这些凡夫俗子在进化进程中远远甩在身后？