biting the dust

no, i'm not ranting about Queen again.

last month the wife cautioned me about taking stock of my own health during a particularly busy & stressful week. & as if to underscore that warning, i received tragic news the following week of 2 medics who died prematurely, within days of each other. the 53-yr-old obstetrician in private practice had known for some time that he had heart disease & was found unconscious in his office. the other, a 43-yr-old anaesthetist in govt service, died in a road traffic accident with 2 other staff while on official duty.

my age is in-between the two, so you could say i should tread very carefully.

but what prompted me to post this is this article that appeared in the Star yesterday. it was not archived but i managed to trace the writer's original feature in the LA Times. (read here)

sleep deprivation not only makes you feel lousy the next day - WHO actually declared that shift work is probably carcinogenic to humans. basically, it means forget smoking & nitrite-loaded steaks, because cheating sleep increases your risks to heart disease, breast & colon cancers. something to do with the body's natural clock getting disrupted.

earlier articles by the same writer describe how the lack of sleep affects the brain(read here) but it seems that doctors, by & large, are ok with sleep deprivation & even have this attitude of machismo with regard to sleep loss. (read here)

i'm uncertain where where my place is on this issue. i only need 4-5 hours sleep a night, probably a result of habitually getting woken up at unearthly hours over the years. things are less hectic these days & at times the reason i'm up late is the occasional Champions League match.

oops...the UEFA Euro 2008 starts next month. did i just hear my clock ticking erratically?

or, was that the taste of dust in my mouth?