Either this is bollocks, or Rudd is an idiot

Therese Rein says the Prime Minister gets by on three hours a night

If you so much as glance at the literature on sleep, you'll see that statements like that are rubbish. The myth of "great men" being light sleepers has been well and truly debunked. Thomas Edison was one of the worst for boasting about sleeping little at night, but he cat-napped all day.

James B. Maas, Ph.D., sleep researcher at Cornell University and author of Power Sleep, says that "when people are severely sleep-deprived, they lose verbal and problem-solving skills, can't concentrate and undergo rapid mood swings." Many disasters over the past 20 years have involved worker exhaustion, including Chernobyl, the Challenger explosion and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Mood swings? Three hours a night might well explain why Rudd is so rude to his staff, and such a prick to work for. Plus the way he talks could also be explained by sleep deprivation - I make no sense when I've been up all night, and he sounds that way most of the time.

However, making decisions while deprived of sleep hurts productivity. A National Sleep Foundation study found that people who work more than 60 hours a week make almost 10 percent more mistakes on the job than people who work less.

I guess that explains Fuelwatch, Grocerywatch and all those other idiocies that this government has thought up. And the stimulus package - probably put together by shagged out Treasury wonks at 3am.

Rudd might want to ponder this:

Napoleon is not less frequently referred to in the context of napping or polyphasic sleep than da Vinci. And his case is rather easy to falsify through historical records. When compared with an artistic genius of Leonardo, it seems even more preposterous than a brilliant military commander could possibly retire for a nap during a prolonged battle or during his intense life peppered with plethora of engagements. He is indeed said to have slept little and frequently suffer from insomnia at times of great stress. He was also often interrupted by messengers that might perhaps increase his propensity to napping at daylight. Yet he was to be woken up only with bad news. The hard rule was that the good news could wait. His memoirs indicate that he did not mind dying young. Consequently, he would disregard his doctors on the matter of sleeping little and drinking buckets of strong coffee. As Napoleon's life was jam-packed with stress, his short sleep might have been a consequence of his lifestyle. Low sleep diet did not translate well to Napoleon's military skills. Some contemporaries attribute his errors at Waterloo to sleep deprivation. Yet, during slower days he would sleep for sound seven hours, waking up at 7 and often lazing until 8. Then he would yet add an nap in the afternoon. Records also indicate that at Saint Helena he was a normal sleeper, and while stress was replaced with boredom, he often slept late.

This is even more classic - a comment on bloggers who try polyphasic sleep:

All blogs seem to roughly evolve through similar stages. They are invariably written by males, usually young and full of youthful optimism. There is a cultish aura around the whole concept. It parallels the work ethic and self-imposed or super-imposed sleep deprivation of Aum, Branch Davidians, OTS, or Peoples Temple. This monastic appeal is accentuated by the fact that the ambitious adopters often run various forms of diets as part of their "reform". There are lots of hopes associated with the "polyphasic experiment". Those usually revolve around being able to do more, and experiencing "increased energy"

Rudd is up there with the Branch Davidians of Waco fame!

Disclaimer - I usually got very little sleep when on exercise with the Army Reserve. I think we were lucky to get more than 4-5 hours over a 2 week period, yet it usually felt like we were getting 3 or less. Some nights, we got none at all.

When combined with a great deal of physical effort (attacking up hills with an M-60 gets the heart rate going), sleeping on rough ground and/or in wet clothes, being cold and miserable etc etc, it was not surprising that some were a mental wreck by the end of each exercise. I saw people get into fist fights over trival things, I was as irritable as hell, and I even managed to fall asleep standing up on a few occasions. I saw people confuse north with south (which is a small problem when reading maps), and watched as people became utterly incapable of making decisions. They had no idea what planet they were on, and some were reduced to tears because their brains had essentially locked up from lack of sleep.

I have yet to meet anyone who can run on 3 hours of sleep every night, and remain sane, mentally alert and pleasant.

Which is why the article in the SMH is either bullshit, or Rudd is a great flaming idiot who has no idea how to manage his own health and mental wellbeing.