Sleep: The national epidemic

Sleep isn't for the weak.  It's for the smart.  I know from experience.  For the last 15 years I have spent 1/3 of my life awake.  Taking care of people's emergencies, I have been happy and not so happy, to stay awake and avoid my pillow.  This isn't about me and my professional career of consuming coffee and running on 4 hours of sleep in 36 hours.  I would like to bring awareness to a very real problem we are facing, sleep deprivation. 
The average American is estimated to get less than 8 hours of sleep 45% of the time.  What this means is Americans are 15% more likely to have strokes and additional health problems as a result of missed shut eye.  Sleep deprivation isn't just a cognitive problem, it affects all the body systems.  From the central nervouse system to the Immune and Lymphatic systems.  Sleep affects all these bodily systems and has been proven to lead to dementia.  Firefighters aren't alone in this missed shut eye. Many professionals admit to feeling fatigue regularly.