As the definition of modern success inflates, one way Lesmes and other high-achievers accomplish the impossible is by cutting back on sleep.

Sleep loss by income quintile. (Annals of Epidemiology)

For some, sleep loss is a badge of honor, a sign that they don’t require the eight-hour biological reset that the rest of us softies do. Others feel that keeping up with peers requires sacrifice at the personal level—and at least in the short-term, sleep is an invisible sacrifice.

The problem has accelerated with our hyper-connected lives, but it isn't new. Purposeful sleep deprivation originates from the lives and adages of some of America's early business tycoons.

Lesmes told Bethesda Magazine she worked her way through high school and college. “That was the point I realized I wanted to keep busy,” she said. And “once I started down that road, I started to realize I like having [money], so that motivated me a lot as well.”

Still, she feels inadequate: “I can’t be the perfect mom. I want to be, but there’s just not enough time, not enough hours.”

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You don’t need Arianna Huffington to tell you that most adults should sleep seven to nine hours per night, but they don’t. A 2010 CDC survey of more than 15,000 adults found that 30 percent of workers sleep six or fewer hours a day. And although sleep deprivation is particularly common among those who work graveyard shifts, traditional, but long, working hours can also be a problem. A 2009 study of British civil servants found that those who worked more than 55 hours a week, compared with 35 to 40 hours, were nearly twice as likely to be short on sleep.

Sleep loss is most common among older workers (ages 30 to 64), and among those who earn little and work multiple jobs. Still, about a quarter of people in the top income quintile report regularly being short on sleep, and sleep deprivation across all income groups has been rising over the years. A group of sleep researchers recently told the BBC that people are now getting one or two hours less shut-eye each night than they did 60 years ago, primarily because of the encroachment of work into downtime and the proliferation of blue-light emitting electronics.

"We are the supremely arrogant species; we feel we can abandon four billion years of evolution and ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle,” Oxford University Professor Russell Foster said. "And long-term, acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems."

These problems include well-documented correlations with heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and accidents. A March study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that long-term sleep loss was associated with permanent brain damage in rats.

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Some people stay awake because they can’t or don’t want to sleep—they have insomnia, or their Netflix queues beckon. But surveys suggest that at least for some workers, sleep is the first thing to go when there’s pressure to get more done. A quarter of Americans say that their current workday or routine doesn’t allow them to get as much sleep as they’d like.