Rigorous re-patterning can stop the energy drain caused by concern about time.

Betsy saw a whale on her way to work one day. Living north of the Golden Gate Bridge, about 15 miles from San Francisco's Financial District, she has the option of commuting via a ferry that crosses San Francisco Bay. On a late spring morning, about halfway across, she heard a boatman cry out, "Look there's a whale!" Sure enough, off the starboard side, Betsy spied the tell-tale spout, once, then twice. It turns out that whales venture fairly often into San Francisco Bay; but for Betsy and her fellow commuters, this was an extraordinary experience.

As work responsibilities increased the pressure on her schedule, Betsy gave up the ferry. The ride across was 50 minutes; with an added 15 minutes to drive to the embarkation terminal and another 20 to walk to the office after landing at San Francisco, she felt it just ate up too much time.

A lot of other commuters felt the same way. The ferry boats had to move at slow speed because if they speeded up, their wake damaged the shoreline. The transit system began to buy new boats that could go faster without churn, cutting the time of the trip by 40%. Over a handful of years, they replaced all the old boats with the faster models. And then something interesting happened: riders complained. There was something special about the slow boat to San Francisco. The length of time and the steady engines had a soporific effect. The ferry was conducive to reading, to reflecting on work documents or decisions, to staring out the window, even to sleeping. It was a place out of the routine, almost out of time; when the ferry reached its destination, riders felt...different.

And so, responding to popular demand, the transit system returned one lumbering old boat to its schedule: a 5:40 special for folks who want to de-compress on their way home.

Which would you choose: fast or slow? Before you answer, let's look at some related facts.

About 15 years ago, when the Japanese economy was at full boil, young Japanese workers were asked what they wished for. The #1 thing on their list: more sleep. And #2 was: 'not to have bad dreams."

Now that sense of regret is much closer to home, as shown by Newsweek's devoting the cover of its August 9 issue to "The Mystery of Dreams." A sidebar noted that nearly 40% of Americans now sleep fewer than seven hours on weeknights; nearly 60% experience some kind of insomnia at least several nights a week.

The National Sleep Foundation, source of the data that appeared in Newsweek, links Americans' sleep patterns with their behavior, mood, and performance. The NSF's 2002 "Sleep in America" poll provided the first "direct correlation between more sleep and heightened daytime alertness with positive feelings that include a sense of peace, satisfaction with life, and being full of energy. Shorter sleep periods and greater indications of daytime sleepiness were related to negative moods such as anger, stress, pessimism, and fatigue."