Let's all sleep on it

Maybe we should all just get some rest.

The less sleep we get, the more we blame other people for things that go wrong, according to a study shared last month at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. The research, performed on college students, showed the tired ones played this blame game, sometimes to the point of considering revenge, even when there was no evidence other people had caused their problems.

This is known as "counterfactual" thinking, and it crops up in many ways for the sleep-deprived.

Scientists have long known that too few ZZZ's means too many problems, including impatience, poor health, diminished concentration and slowed reflexes. A separate paper presented at this same conference even showed that when we get too little sleep, we are less able to resist fat-laden foods.

The more the subject is analyzed, the more good reasons we find to catch eight hours, yet almost nobody does. The average American gets about six hours and 40 minutes of shut-eye each night, and more than one-fifth say they snooze less than six hours daily.

Americans could probably be persuaded to increase our sack time if it got us to stop blaming others for everything through mouthfuls of pastry, but we need test groups to do the research on. They should include people known to sleep too little and point their fingers at others too much.

Mandatory nap times for members of Congress, NFL players and owners, and the cast of "Jersey Shore," perhaps? hN