Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Fleur Anderson

Quote by Fleur Anderson

“Parliament is the most visible and exaggerated example of how our societyis changing. It illustrates the blurring of our daytime work hours into night, the impact of technology on the 24/7 media cycle, and the slow twisting and shaping of our biological sleep patterns to fit our modern lives. In a democracy, parliament is our society's last line of defence, safeguarding our wellbeing, our pursuit of happiness. In some far-off future, it may be our democracy that decides what it means to be human.”

Quote by Fleur Anderson

Book:On Sleep
Create image

Work

On Sleep

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Fleur Anderson

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Fleur Anderson. more

You May Also Like

“Yet we need our elected representatives to remain connected to our everyday rhythms - of waking in the pale dawn to gently prod our children awake, the morning commute, the early evening conflict of a trip to the gym versus a wine or two, a late-night work email check, or the start of the late shift on a second job. Until technology intervenes to 'cure' our need for sleep, this is our life in the twenty-first century.”

GovernmentSleepSocietyModern LifeCircadian Rhythms
Book:On Sleep
Create image

“It turns out that about 3 per cent of the human population need on average two hours' less sleep a night than the rest of us. Let's call them the super-awake. And another 3 per cent of the population are the super-sleepers, who need an extra two hours' sleep to function normally. And the average person? We need about seven to nine hours a night to be at our superhero best.”

SleepAverage PersonSleep RequirementsVariation In Human Population
Book:On Sleep
Create image

“Now let's consider the impact of sleep deprivation on our ability to distinguish right from wrong. A study of people in a raffle ticket competition found participants were more likely to cheat if they'd had as little as twenty-two minutes' less sleep than normal. Another study found we're less likely to search the internet for ethics-related queries the day we shift our clocks forward to daylight-saving time. Other studies found tired people are less likely to notice unethical behaviour in others, or even to recognise in the first place whether there is a moral or ethical question at stake.”

SleepImpact Of Sleep Deprivation
Book:On Sleep
Create image

“So how do we ease our subconscious mind, which inconveniently revives our old regrets, past grievances and midnight 'staircase wit'? "I think there is a discipline about going to sleep and I don't know if it works more generally for people, but for me, it's got two parts to it," [former Australian Prime Minister] Rudd says. The first is to distinguish the things you can and cannot control, to reconcile them and hopefully stop your mind returning automatically to those things that are, as Rudd says, "outside your purchase".”

SleepSubconscious MindNight Time ObssessionsSleep Discipline
Book:On Sleep
Create image

“Over the years, putting his [former Australian Greens leader, Bob Brown] anxieties down on paper, and later on iPad, has helped put his sleep worries into context: the absurdity of worrying about the impact of one night without sleep on his performance in the day. On this particular night, 'It made me think about it, about people in the world with much worse situations for whatever reason, who can't sleep', he says. 'And in a way, how absurd, how silly it is that we find ourselves unable to sleep over some immediate discomfort ... [over] anxiety to perform, but that's how it is'.”

SleepSleep DisturbanceNocturnal AnxietyRecording By Hand
Book:On Sleep
Create image

“[Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard] would not schedule any Cabinet meetings in the evening because he'd previously observed as a minister that any meeting after dinner and a couple of glasses of wine was an 'inefficient use of time'. ... Predictable? Most of the time, yes. But in Howard's view, a regular timetable was also a courtesy, as much for other people's benefit as his own. For his security detail, younger men and women who often had children. For his staff, who regularly had to be reminded to take a lunchbreak. And also for his ministers, obliged to attend endless public functions.”

SleepRoutineCourtesySchedule
Book:On Sleep
Create image