Lack Of Sleep

A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.

It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India. However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner ( in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away ), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age.

Was it the stress?

A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.

The Real Reason

However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' Day Out': Boss' Day Out: Ranjan Das of SAP India.

Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep ( and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled ).

The Evidence

Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of ‘Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep’. While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives.

Some Excerpts:

· Short sleep duration ( <5 or 5-6 hours ) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009. As you know, high BP kills.

· Young people ( 25-49 years of age ) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.

· Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.

· Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!

· Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004.

· Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.

Ideal Sleep

For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.

The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type.

For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess ( lack of non-REM sleep ), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down ( I’ve been there, done that ).

Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage.

If you want to know if you are getting adequate sleep, take Epworth Sleepiness Test below.

Interpretation: Score of 0-9 is considered normal while 10 and above abnormal. Many a times, I have clocked 21 out the maximum possible 24, the only saving grace being the last situation, since I don’t like to drive ( maybe, I should ask my driver to answer that line ).

In conclusion:

Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising ( marathoning! ), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.
If you are not getting enough sleep ( 7 hours ), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.

I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep.

Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance. Please forward this mail/article to as many of your colleagues/friends as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep. If we can save even one young life because of this email, I would be the happiest person on earth.

A Foreigner's Comment On Tun Mahathir's Articles

A foreigner's comment on our beloved Tun Mahathir's article : Kaki dalam Kasut where he says the Chinese are the real masters of Malaysia.

This is a very well written article that we should all read. Comments from a foreign writer Bryant on Tun Mahathir's article: Kaki dalam Kasut where he says the Chinese are the real masters of Malaysia .

This article was written without fear or favour, and it is up to us to digest individually the truth of the matter, especially for all Malaysians (irrespective of race, colour, creed or religion).


To: The highly respected Tun Mahathir,


China is coming up, India is coming up, Vietnam is coming up and now even Russia is on the rise. In this flat world that is all wired up and regardless whether we are Malaysian Malay, Chinese or Indian, and if Malaysia does not progress, all of us would become history of this country!

Without the Malay, Chinese could not do well in the country and without the Chinese, Malay would not do well. Both have to work together to bring up Malaysia and mitigate the ascute impact that is being brought about by the globalisation.

For me, a true leader is someone who has the foresight that not only focus on one particular group in the country but take care of the future of everyone. A good leader is someone who knows what is the biggest threat the country is facing and direct the people to fight off the threat. A leader is also someone who is impartial that has the ability to promote harmony in the country for a long period of time.

UMNO is a political loser that leads the country to nowhere. They do not understand what is going on in the outside world. They have no clue where Malaysia will be in the next 30 years. With the 3 new superpowers, i.e India , China and Russia standing tall and high together with the USA and the European Union, they do not know what kind of world it would be and how Malaysia is going to compete and share the ever smaller slice of cake of the world economy. They only know how to get the Malays to fight with other Non-Malays on tiny issues within Malaysia , while the races know jolly well that the issues they are fighting are trivial and is totally self-satisfying.

UMNO does not give a damn to how the poor Malays are going to live in the future and they do not care about the real benefits of the poor Malays. They only want the votes from them. The NEP is a good evidence on how they benefit the cronies, instead of the poor Malays. Despite all their despicable acts they are still in the power.

The highly respected Tun,

As you are aware, the Malays control the rights to all the lands and all other natural resources in this country. They control all government institutions, GLC and State owned companies. The Malays dominate the lawmaking process in Malaysia ; The Malays control the decision making process in formulating the economy policies. The Malays own the largest national assets and the Malays are given shares in the public listed companies for free. The Malays have also been given all kind of priorities when it comes to buying properties, awarding of public contracts, tertiary education opportunities, awarding of scholarships and even getting a job in government departments.

With all these privileges and rights enjoyed by the Malays, you are saying nothing has been done enough to help the Malays to catch up with other races mainly the Chinese. Then what else should Malaysia do to satisfy the Malays? Did the Chinese seize or rob anything away from the Malays or was all their wealth, a result of their hard work? If it is all due to their hard work, why do you say it is unfair? I don't quite get your point here.

May I humbly ask you what do you expect the Chinese to do if your so-called NEP did not achieve the desired result? Would the Malays be happy if the ethnic Chinese in this country do any of the followings:

- surrender their assets and hard earned money to the Malays unconditionally

- not to engage in any business activities;

- not to score As in all sort of examinations;

- not to make money that is more than the Malays are earning;

- not to advance to higher education; or

- renounce their citizenships and go back to China or migrate to some other countries?

I am a foreigner but I am surprised that your intention is to divide your own country. I think you are mainly targeting the Chinese. Frankly, tell us, what do you expect the Chinese to do in order to achieve what is so called equality" meant by you?

Tun, after all these criticism you have against the present government, I feel that you are starting to loose your rationality on your arguments. You have run out of good reasons to convince us. I guess it could be due to your accumulating jealousy of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, your former counterpart in Singapore .

But reality is always hard to accept. No matter how, you have to accept the fact that he is regarded the Father of Singapore but you are not regarded the Father of Malaysia; you have to accept the fact that Mr Lee is able to influence the government of Singapore until the day he dies but you have not been able to influence the government from the moment you stepped down as PM.

You must also accept the fact that he is still very popular on the world stage and a leader respected by many but you are not quite. Because of these jealousies, you are starting to accumulate imbalances in yourself that lead you to embark on a series of action to attack your successors. It is very obvious that you are not happy when your successors are more popular than you. Is there any good of doing that? What is your intention? Can't you take
it easy?

During your time, you criticised most of the developed countries especially the Western Countries out of jealousy and after stepping down as PM you criticise every single soul remaining in the cabinet for not listening to you. When will you ever stop criticising any people? Can't you respect the decision of others?

Back to your recent blog, is there anything wrong with the Chinese in this country? Did they seize or rob the money away from the Malays? Did they have the ability to come out with any policies to marginalise the Malays? Did they dominate the lawmaking process of this country? Did they formulate the economy policies in this country? Did they control the government departments in this country? Did they control the state owned companies and GLC in this country? Did they control the country's largest oil companies and banks?

You know the answer right?

Malays are the one who dominate the the lawmaking process of this country; Malays are the one that formulate the economy policies in this country that favours the Malays. Malays are the ones that control the government departments, state owned companies and GLC. Malays are the one that control the funds in this country. Malays are also the ones that control the largest oil companies and banking industry in this country. With all these rights enjoyed by the Malays, what else do you want the Chinese to do? Surrender their houses and savings and their wealth that they earned with their hardwork to the Malays? Or ask all the Chinese to renounce their citizenship and go back to China ?

Have you ever thought of the fact after 30 years of implementing NEP, why it does not achieve the desired result? Or it does achieve but being denied.

Under the NEP there are a series of policies that favors the Malays. If with all these policies, it still does not give the Malays what they want, what else do you want the Chinese to do? Is the Chinese to be blamed because they are too hard working? Or the Malays to be blamed because they do not treasure the opportunities given?

You know very well the NEP has been misused and it only benefits the cronies. So if you have designed NEP to only benefits the cronies, please don't say it is the problem of Chinese that NEP does not achieve its result. It has nothing to do with the Chinese but NEP and the Malay themselves.

This is a globalised world, Chinese and Malays should not be fighting against each other because Malaysia is competing with other countries. China used to be backward and lagging behind Malaysia but now they have caught up and have even surpassed Malaysia . Can we ask them to slow down their development? If they refuse to listen, can we make a complaint to the United Nations that China is developing too fast and this is very unfair to Malaysia, which adapts a more passive approach? Who gives you the right to prevent others from progressing?

Who do you think you are? This is a flat world (Obviously Tun did not read the book named "The World is Flat"). Don't be so narrow minded to only focus on the Chinese or Malay in Malaysia . We should now look at the world as a flat world. If Malaysia does not progress, no matter we are Malays or Chinese, we would be extinct one day!

Have a God-blessed day.

Coffee Time Between Two Leaders

This is called 1Malaysia when two leaders from two different parties can work together to achieve a better Malaysia. 1Malaysia is a good ideology if it can united the Malaysian working toward our vision without considering whether you are a Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban or any other minority race.

Sexiest Man Alive

Johnny Depp is the sexiest man alive awarded by People Magazine. After months of protest against the voting panel, I was still beaten by the Pirate of Caribbean star. I will be working harder for the coming year.

Miss Universe Involved In Threesome Sex Tape

Both Miss Trinidad & Tobago and Miss Japan of Miss Universe 2008 has become the latest beauty to be caught up with in a sex tape scandal. Miss Trinidad and Tobago 2008 participant, Anya Ayoung-Chee was videotaped having sexual relations with her boyfriend, Wyatt Gallery and another woman. Initially, Hiroko Mima, Miss Japan 2008 was believed to have taken part in the threesome sex video. Gallery told reporter that the third woman involved is not Hiroko as reported. According to Gallery, the sex recording was shot in 2007 and was stolen from Gallery's computer laptop while in a repair shop in Trinidad. Sound familiar? Another classic case of Edison Chen's story. Believe it or not?

Belle de Jour Unmasked

The secret life of Dr Brooke Magnanti, an obscure research scientist, exposed as she unmasks herself as the writer behind Belle de Jour. Magnanti is a respected specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology in a hospital research group in Bristol. Six year ago, while doing her PhD thesis, she ran out of money and turned to prostitution to support herself. She began writing her experience in her blog which then led to a best-selling book, "The Intimate Adventure Of A London Call Girl" and sparked two more books and inspired the ITV drama series starring Billie Piper, that is shown in 25 countries. Finally, Magnanti decided it was time to unmask herself saying anonymity had become no fun. "It feels so much better on this side. Not to have to tell lies, hide things from the people I care about. To be able to defend what my experience of sex work is like to all the skeptics and doubters," she wrote on her blog.

Rihanna Wear A See-Through Dress

Rihanna attended the Woman of the Year Awards in New York City on Monday wearing a pretty white see-through dress that showed off her assets. She was honored as one of the Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year and gave a speech. She is not shy and this is the way she reward her fans with a full view of her tits by wearing a sheer dress without a bra.