From the Publisher

By Louis A. Weil III

Brrrriiiing! That's the alarm clock going off, and now that everyone's wide awake, let's talk about sleep. Nobody can do without it, and most people -- including journalists at TIME -- don't get enough. While writing this week's cover story on sleep deprivation, associate editor Anastasia Toufexis realized "how little sleep I get -- typically six to seven hours." For this story, she got even less, pulling an all-nighter to meet a deadline. As TIME's Business editor for three years, Charles Alexander says he was "notorious for staying at work all night and grabbing a few hours of sleep in my office." His record: 78 hours on the job with 13 hours of intermittent naps. Today, as Sciences editor, Alexander enjoys more regular hours, but his new office still has a couch, just in case.

Delving deeper with experts into the mysteries of sleep, reporter-researcher Janice Horowitz became self-conscious about what is usually a natural act. "The minute my head hit the pillow, I began wondering about which stage of sleep I was approaching," she says. "I was actually watching myself trying to doze off." Joan Menschenfreund, who coordinated the story's photography, tries to cure occasional sleeplessness by watching TV. She's careful to pick soporific fare: "I sometimes get so involved in the program that I'm more wide awake than ever." And some think that if they absolutely, positively can't sleep, then they might as well get some work done. Reporter-researcher Linda Williams pays bills in the wee hours and vacuums her apartment (poor neighbors). Steve Hart, who designed the accompanying charts on sleep rhythms, has even been known to replace the grout around his bathroom tiles after midnight. It's not getting to sleep that bothers associate art director Ina Saltz; it's what happens to her in the middle of the night. She sometimes talks aloud in her sleep with such intensity that it wakes her up and her husband as well.

After speaking to medical sources and learning about the dire effects of missing sleep, correspondent James Willwerth began going to bed an hour earlier. "Now," he reports, "I'm happy to greet the day for the first time in my life." His campaign to prevent midday yawns is less successful. He tried stretching out in his office at TIME's Los Angeles bureau one afternoon. Colleagues kept bursting in the door, he grumbles, "unaware that a scientific experiment was in progress."