“…I believe the biggest mistake in the “mindset” of people today is thinking that enough exercise can get them the weight loss they want and should be their top priority. I was reminded of this recently by a person I see in the gym who is doing at least 2+ hours of daily cardio and some weights. He is in there 4-5x a week and I kid you not, brings food to the gym to snack on while he works out. I’ve consulted with him in the past and told him that he needed to focus less on working out and more on eating correctly, yet his response was “Oh…I can’t do that, I like to eat too much…so I need to workout instead”. Wrong……wrong….wrong. …”

“…Behind the scenes, it was even worse. The night before Obama announced the administration’s housing plan on Feb. 18 in Arizona, Sperling e-mailed the final documents at 3 a.m. and asked for comments. Five people responded immediately.

Martin Moore-Ede, a former Harvard University professor, calls it the “iron man” syndrome and says the American political workplace is one of the few that still resists a mechanism for ensuring people get rest.

One study conducted for the British Parliament found that “mental fatigue affects cognitive performance, leading to errors of judgement, microsleeps (lasting for seconds or minutes), mood swings and poor motivation.” The effect, it found, is equal to a blood alcohol level of .10 percent — above the legal limit to drive in the United States.

Obama administration officials, and their predecessors, shrug off such warnings, citing the adrenaline rush. They insist that their bodies have grown strangely accustomed to the rhythms of the job. But they acknowledge that the routine in the White House is more grueling than most had anticipated.

The staff is beginning to take a few breaks. One deputy press secretary found time to get away to Hawaii for a few days. Gibbs went to his high school reunion in Alabama, the first weekend away that he can remember.

But, he says, it is not enough.

“You go down to the mess. You have your coffee at five in the afternoon, and it just doesn’t do anything,” Gibbs lamented. “Because you realize you’re so far behind [in sleep] that a jolt — you don’t even feel it.”