Are we all half awake all of the time? Violinists aren't.

This way to Carnegie Hall.

I know. One more article on getting enough sleep and you'll just doze off. Fine. I don't get enough, so this is for me.

Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and author of The Way We're Working Isn't Working, made me think of this. His thoughts.

We continue to live by a remarkably durable myth: sleeping one hour less will give us one more hour of productivity. In reality, the research suggests that even small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our health, our mood, our cognitive capacity and our productivity. Insufficient sleep, for example, wreaks havoc on our memory.

So how much sleep do you need?

When researchers put test subjects in environments without clocks or windows and ask them to sleep any time they feel tired, 95 percent sleep between seven and eight hours out of every 24. Another 2.5 percent sleep more than eight hours. That means just 2.5 percent of us require less than 7 hours of night a sleep to feel fully rested. That's 1 out of every 40 people.

And what's the deal with violinists?

Typically, they sleep significantly more than the rest of us. In Anders Ericcson's famous study of violinists, the top performers slept an average of 8 ½ hours out of every 24, including a 20 to 30 minute midafternoon nap some 2 hours a day more than the average American. The top violinists also reported that except for practice itself, sleep was second most important factor in improving as violinists.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Nap, nap.