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Keller @ Large: We Need More Sleep

BOSTON (CBS) - Did you get a good night's sleep last night?

I did, mainly because assorted aches and pains from pushing snow and ice around kept me tossing and turning for most of the week, and I finally, mercifully, crashed.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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I can only wish that I could sleep the deep, apparently undisturbable sleep of Dan Scagliarini of Springfield, who reportedly slept right through the partial collapse of his roof Thursday morning under the weight of all that mess. Firefighters had to wake the guy up to tell him about the roof falling in.

Some people are like that.

I used to work with a guy who, if we were ten minutes early for an assignment, would tip back his car seat, pull his hat over his eyes, and drop right off for a refreshing nine-minute nap, something I am completely unable to do.

And that's no laughing matter.

It's estimated that we sleep on average an hour and a half less than people did a hundred years ago, and most of us do not get the seven to eight hours per night recommended for most adults.

There is mounting concern among medical experts that this sleep deprivation is sapping our national brainpower.

How else to account for the cast of "Jersey Shore"?

When you miss sleep or suffer from interrupted sleep, you build up something called a "sleep debt," and you can't borrow from the Chinese to settle it.

After raising two boys, I estimate my sleep debt to be approximately 1.2 million hours, a deficit which cannot be made up during the State of the Union address or the major league baseball all star game, no matter how hard I try.

But I don't mean to complain. They say your bio-rhythms never really adjust to an overnight work schedule, so my pain is nothing compared to what Steve Leveille or my colleagues on the WBZ TV and Radio morning news suffer through.

Still, if you see me coming out of DD at all hours of the day with an iced coffee the size of Rhode Island, have some sympathy. It's not a luxury. It's a necessity.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

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