How to Sleep Your Way to the Top

By David K. Randall, Author of
Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep

It was the oops that ended a presidential campaign.

After struggling for almost a minute in a November debate to come up with the third federal agency he'd eliminate should he win the Oval Office, Texas Gov. Rick Perry finally admitted he couldn't remember.

While his campaign quickly tried to limit the damage, there had been earlier signs that Gov. Perry was in trouble that had little to do with his campaign war chest, his policies, or his personal charisma. Instead, they had everything to do with his pillow.

"We had a tired puppy," one of Perry's Republican allies told The New York Times after the governor had performed poorly in a string of earlier debates. Aides tried to rework his schedule in order for Governor Perry to get more hours of slumber, but it apparently wasn't enough before that November night.

For most of us, it's easy to see the stumble as nothing more than a memorable gaffe. Yet Governor Perry's moment of forgetfulness should also serve as the sum of all fears for anyone who sees sleep as something that can be put off or overlooked without painful consequences.

When a person lies down to sleep at night, the brain undergoes a process that is crucial to learning, memory, and performance in ways that scientists are only now beginning to understand.

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