We all know lack of sleep affects our personality and sense of humour, rendering us more irritable and less tolerant as well as impairing our thinking and cognitive processes. Our hormone and immune functions change during specific stages of sleep, effecting the restoration and healing of our bodies. Sleep deprivations in early life has led to decreased brain mass, permanent sleep problems and behavioural problems as well as insufficient sleep being associated with a number of chronic diseases and conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and depression. So too little sleep is no laughing matter!

At 5:30 this last beautiful Sunday morning, the birds were tweeting and the sunlight shining into my room and, finally, the distant 'boom, boom boom' of the bass boxes is silenced. Unfortunately for me, the sleep has been lost forever - a night of watching the clock, tossing and turning and blood pressure soaring! Unfortunately, on this occasion, I was unable to call the police because I had no clue as to where the noise was emanating from.

I do not care whether we are talking uptown, downtown or anywhere in-between, we have to get serious about stopping these sound systems at the correct time. Let's face it, even the legal midnight lock-off in the week, and 2 a.m. lock-off on a weekend, is still a serious inconvenience to most of us and I believe volume should also be a consideration during these legal times. Most of us have to get up and be a good functioning parent and a good employee to someone and we all know that this can be much harder without a little quality shut-eye!

I urge every citizen who knows the exact locations of these 'past legal time' sessions to call and notify the police and keep on calling them until peace is restored. We all have to get proactive!

I am, etc.

TRACEY MCNAIR

Kingston 8