The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: February 22, 2009

Official News page 7


REAL LIFE NEWS: TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO EMAIL

by Hazed

I have two stories about sleeping that I collected over the past couple of months.

First, it seems that if you don't get enough sleep, you're increasing the risk of catching a cold. A team from Carnegie Mellon University has found that the risk is trebled in those that get less than seven hours a night. It's thought that a lack of sleep impairs the immune system and the body's ability to fight off the viruses that cause cold and flu.

So I'm right to want to stay in bed! Getting up early to go to work really is bad for my health.

The other sleep story is that the first case of sleep emailing has been documented. An article in the journal Sleep Medicine tells the story of a female insomniac who can compose email messages in her sleep.

The woman was suffering from severe insomnia and was taking a prescription medicine called zolpidem. After her doctor upped her dosage, she received a call from a friend asking about the strange email she'd sent the night before. The patient couldn't remember sending any such email, so checked her outbox and discovered that while she had been asleep three emails had gone out.

The nocturnal messages contained unusual spelling, punctuation and content. For example, an invitation to "dinner & drinks" asked the recipient to "come TOMORROW AND SORT THIS HELL OUT out!!!!"

It's well known that sometimes people do odd things in their sleep. Sleep walkers are common, and so are sleep eaters. Sex while asleep has also been documented. But this is the first case of sleep emailing.

Unless, of course, aliens snuck into her house and sent the emails while she was asleep...

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