Sleep power: Everyone needs their "zzzs" to function at their best

There's no question that getting a good night's sleep regularly is good for you, your staff and your constituents. "Sleep is a necessity, not a luxury," said M. Safwan Badr, MD, a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), at the 2014 launch of "Sleep Well, Be Well," a campaign of the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project. Yet many people--more than half in a recent AARP/University of Michigan national poll--believe that poor sleep is a normal part of aging, and as a result, they don't seek information on how to improve sleep. But experts agree that many sleep problems--even chronic ones--can be helped by nondrug strategies and behavior changes.