The National Sleep Federation (NSF), an independent non-profit organization, has been annually collecting statistics on how people sleep. The results of its 2002 Sleep in America poll show what may be a trend toward less sleep. Fewer adults appear to be getting eight or more hours of sleep each night compared to the previous year (38 % versus 30%). Overall, 24%reported that they got less than the minimum amount of sleep they believed they needed to not feel sleepy the next day. NSF’s 2003 poll showed that almost half of all adults surveyed (48% of adults fifty-five to eighty four years old) report having one or more symptoms of insomnia at least a few nights per week.

Outwitting Insomnia, by Ellen Mohr Catalano, 2004. p.viii