60-Second Symposium

By Melissa August; Val Castronovo; Matthew Cooper; Ellin Martens; Julie Rawe; Flora Tartakovsky and Josh Tyrangiel

WIN NOW, SLEEP LATER With their campaigns in high gear, the presidential candidates have little time for decent slumber. Those acquainted with sleep deprivation offer some advice on how to keep going:

Richard Gelula, executive director, National Sleep Foundation. "[The candidates] should be very careful about their diet. They're going to want to script themselves well and stick to subjects they're familiar with because they're likely to make errors and have difficulty maintaining a continuity of thought."

Susan Butcher, four-time Iditarod champion. "I would stay away from coffee or tea or chocolate so I would get no artificial highs or lows. When you first start depleting your body of sleep, it really complains. My favorite thing to do was scoop up a handful of snow and throw it in my face."

Antonio Mora, news anchor, Good Morning America. "It's summed up in one word: nap. That's what allowed me to be able to survive and to get up in the morning in time to do everything that I needed to do. Caffeine does work for me. I'm one of the last Tab drinkers in America."