We should get paid for sleeping

According to an article in the New York Times, one of the purposes of sleep is to help you think:

Now, a small group of neuroscientists is arguing that at least one vital function of sleep is bound up with learning and memory. A cascade of new findings, in animals and humans, suggest that sleep plays a critical role in flagging and storing important memories, both intellectual and physical, and perhaps in seeing subtle connections that were invisible during waking — a new way to solve a math or Easter egg problem, even an unseen pattern causing stress in a marriage.

Read the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/health/23memo.html?8dpc

This is no news to most software engineers and computer programmers: on countless occasions, I have ended the day 'stuck on something' after spending hours banging my head on a (metaphorical) brick wall -- the next morning I come in and solve the problem within minutes.

During the dot-comm era it was common for programmers to work 60-80 hour weeks (I'm sure this culture persists at many companies now); however, I always maintained that this was counter-productive: I preferred the concept that 'the best programmers are lazy programmers'.

Of course now that I have scientific proof that leaving a problem at proper quitting time and 'sleeping' on it is the best strategy, I will start logging my sleep time as productive time and get my 60-80 hours in that way.