'Arrogance' of ignoring need for sleep

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27286872

Prof Russell Foster, at the University of Oxford, said people were getting between one and two hours less sleep a night than 60 years ago.

He said: "We are the supremely arrogant species; we feel we can abandon four billion years of evolution and ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle.

"What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems."

He says this is an issue affecting the whole of society, not just shift workers.

Prof Foster said that this was an acute problem in teenagers and he had met children who sleep by popping their parent's sleeping tablets in the evening and then downing three Red Bulls in the morning.