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CNN Live Today

Interview With Karen Springen

Aired July 08, 2002 - 11:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Question for you, as we start another work week here: Did you get a good night's sleep last night? I certainly hope so, but 70 million of you probably did not. It's not just annoying, it's unhealthy and it's unsafe, especially if it's because of a serious sleep disorder.

This was the cover story on "Newsweek" is going to hit home with a lot of folks. It's full of eye-opening information about sleep, why we need it and why too many of us are not getting enough of it. And Karen Springen, one of the writers of the article, is joining us from Chicago. Karen, good morning.

KAREN SPRINGEN, "NEWSWEEK": Good morning.

KAGAN: Must have loved this. They call a working mom and say we're going to do a thing about sleep.

SPRINGEN: Yes, that's right. That's right. I know, I'm so lucky. Of the 70 million people who have sleep problems, about half of them have actual disorders. And about half of us, and I'm in this half, do it to ourselves, whether it's newborn babies or staying up too late working, or the National Sleep Foundation found simply watching TV and surfing the Internet.

KAGAN: Guilty as charged on a number of those. In fact, there's a list that you can get out of the article that that's -- it's not -- some things that we can't control. I mean, you can't control if you have little kids. But too much caffeine, a lot of us do that. Smoking, alcohol, not enough exercise, irregular hours, new baby, bedroom noise and uncomfortable mattress. What's the name of -- Barbara Kantrowitz. She's one of the writers, also, of the article?

SPRINGEN: Right. Barbara Kantrowitz is just one of our editors who basically has had a lot of sleep problems for 20 years, which is how she got the idea to really do this piece. And so many of us are in the same boat. And for the story, she went to the sleep center and thought she only woken up once the whole night, and they actually found she had woken up 90 times. And so many of us think we're sleeping well and we're actually not. She's one of them.

KAGAN: And as you mention -- as you mention off the top, 50 percent of this is physical. Fifty percent is something that we can do about. So it's not just as easy as just saying, oh, well, if I only had the money to do something medical. I mean, these are actually things we actually could change in our lives.

SPRINGEN: Right, for many people. If you think that you actually have a true disorder, you could go to a sleep center. It's about $1,200 to $1,600, but your insurance will usually cover it, fortunately. And you can actually be hooked up like Barbara was, and they can tell you -- tell you what your problems are and give you some remedies. But there are a lot of us who it's within our control.

KAGAN: And you also have some astounding numbers in the article. The average American gets seven hours sleep, which actually it's going to sound like a lot to some of us out there. That's 90 minutes fewer than a century ago. And our bodies are kind of like bank accounts. They're keeping score.

SPRINGEN: Exactly. We can sort of go back to the invention of the light bulb in 1879, which let us all stay awake much later than we should ever be staying awake and let us all have weird shift jobs that our bodies weren't meant to have. So if you go back to then and you see we got off of our circadian clock; we're able to do 24-hour Internet, 24-hour supermarket and we screw up our whole body.

KAGAN: We'd love to have a conversation here. And Leon and I are on a better schedule now, but we used to be on very, very early, and the big philosophical debate at CNN is to nap or not to nap.

SPRINGEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KAGAN: Do you or don't you?

SPRINGEN: Exactly. Well, you should, but take what they call a power nap, which is no more than an hour. If you nap for more than an hour, you're actually groggier. But if you do, say, a great 45-minute nap, you'll be totally revived, according to the experts. But how many of us get to take that 45-minute power nap, even?

KAGAN: Yes, I'll tell you. There's nothing fabulous about a 45- minute nap. It's like a four-hour nap is kind of more what I'm ordering.

SPRINGEN: Exactly.

KAGAN: OK. Well, lots of good information. And as I said, I think a lot of people are going to just, if nothing else, say, hey, that is me, when they hear about why we can't sleep. And learning about your sleep switch is the cover of "Newsweek" this week. Karen Springen, thanks for stopping by, and sweet dreams.

SPRINGEN: Thank you so much.

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