It’s one area that has been overlooked, for long, by medical science and researchers, despite the fact that sleep and sex involves both mind and body, and hence plays an important role in an individual’s over all well being.

Contemporary sleep researchers are quick to point out how a lack of quality sleep, (about seven to eight hours, according to American sleep foundation), in people can lead to a host of ailments, both mental as well as physical—from reduced sexual desire and drop in testosterone levels to adverse impact on fertility and even brain damage.

But this was not the case until the late 1950s or even later, when psychologists and researchers even went to the extent of arguing that “sleeplessness are a blessing.”

The attitude came from a sleep-deprivation cult pioneered in the West by America’s greatest inventor: Thomas Edison, the father of the light bulb.

Edison was not only a notorious anti-sleeper but also prevented others from sleeping. One of the reasons why he invented the light bulb was to stop
his employees and subordinates, from sleeping.

Edison acted pretty much like a jerk when it came to depriving other people of their sleep. He even deputed security guards to drag his employees who slept for more than four hours, back to work. His famous motivational rant was “fish swim in the water all night. Even a horse doesn’t sleep. A man doesn’t need any sleep.”

Hero-worshipping researchers, authors and self-help gurus who came after Edison faithfully toed his philosophy without much critical examination or thinking.

Children’s books published in the 1950’s and 1960’s talked glowingly about Edison’s ‘insomnia squad’ and how he used to conduct job interviews at 4 am.

“We don’t even know if we have to sleep at all” wrote Dale Carnegie in his all-time best selling ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.’

No wonder, we have so many anti-sleep braggers in our midst today.

Our sleep is sloth cultural attitude started to change only in the last few decades with researchers taking a fresh look at sleep, and how lack of it can affect our overall wellness and sexual function.