WHY SLEEP IS THE NEW SEX – February 16^th 2006

 

Because it’s easier to get a bit of the other!

 

leep is the new sex, according to an investigation by Forbes business magazine. People want it, need it, and can’t get enough of it.

 

Where once they flocked to witch doctors for love potions, these days they’re more likely to queue at the chemists’ for the latest in unromantic snooze aids.

 

Never mind Viagra; the canniest investors are quietly putting their money in companies specializing in insomnia. And while we toss and turn, sales of prescription drugs, custom mattresses and other slumber-inducing gadgets have rocketed.

 

The sleep aid industry is now worth billions of pounds a year worldwide, and is expected to grow further. Pharmaceutical remedies lead the field, but almost every week sees a new sleep cure-all come onto the market.

 

For just a few pounds, you can try the Insomnia Relief Scent Inhaler (lavender, rosemary, camomile and vetiver, a grass root). Or, if you prefer being soothed to sleep by white noise, the Original Sound Pillow (£30) comes with two thin speakers and a headphone jack for your iPod or Discman.

 

Spend a bit more (just under £90) and the Pzizz will play music, voices and tones geared towards helping you doze off. Dreamate, a £50 device worn as a bracelet, delivers a massage to the ‘golden triangle’, a.k.a. your wrist, that will supposedly help you sleep.

 

A princess tired of that bothersome pea beneath her featherbed can fork out close to £6,000 for a mattress topped with latex and stitched with real silver threads; double that sum will buy her a mattress filled with layers of silk, cashmere and lambs’ wool.

 

 

xperts generally agree that most adults require between seven and nine hours sleep a night. Most of us – rich and poor, for this is a trans-income, trans-class issue – get less than seven hours sleep on a regular basis, with one in ten saying they get fewer than six even at weekends.

 

As a consequence, at least half of us wake up feeling tired. There seem to be two separate, if inter-related, causes of sleep deprivation: the inability to fall – and stay – asleep, otherwise known as insomnia; and a 24/7 society that simply doesn’t allow us enough time to get the sleep we need.

 

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, there are no fewer than 81 chronic sleep disorders, from apnea, which causes interrupted breathing, to Restless Leg Syndrome. Unsurprisingly, ‘sleep labs’ are popping up everywhere – there are around 70 in Britain.

 

But how many of us are truly sleep deprived? Professor Jim Horne, Director of the Sleep Research Unit at Loughborough University, says in his controversial new book, ‘Seafaring: A Journey through the Science of Sleep’, that the whole concept of sleep ‘deprivation’ is actually a modern myth.

 

‘Eighty years ago, the average worker probably had a cold, noisy, draughty bedroom, a bed occupied by lots of children, and was plagued by bed bugs and fleas,’ he says. ‘Our sleep conditions have never been better. There’s no need for all this hype about sleep deprivation.

 

People are choosing to do other things with their spare time like work or watch TV instead of sleep; it’s not deprivation, but a lifestyle choice.’ Certainly, insomnia is a very modern problem; one that has increased dramatically as our society has become open all hours.

 

Centuries ago, when we were part of an agricultural society living off the land and governed by its rhythms, most people rose with the sun and went to bed when it set.

 

The dawn of the industrial age in the18th century changed that. People set off for work in the mills and factories before sunrise, and returned home after dark, but gaslight – and later electricity – meant that the dusk-till-dawn curfew no longer applied. But there was no television to keep them awake.

 

The big change for modern society came the Eighties, when for the first time, people realized that if they worked hard enough, fortunes could be made no matter what your background. All you had to do was put in the hours.

 

This Thatcherite having-it-all dream was accompanied by the biggest technological leap forward since the invention of the aeroplane: the home computer.

 

Together with faxes, mobile phones, and later the transforming power of the internet, it effectively ended the concept of a traditional work day. You didn’t leave the office: the office came home with you.

 

Businesses fought to gain an edge over their competitors by opening longer and longer hours, eating into the weekend until Sunday, the traditional day of rest, was consumed by the commercial dragon and, with a few exceptions, has become a workday like any other.

 

Professor Horne acknowledges that the issue of sleep deprivation is more acute amongst women, who are juggling so many different roles. They’re interrupted by small children waking in the night, or simply can’t get to sleep in the first place because their minds are racing.

 

Experts believe this is due to the way women’s minds work and their inability to ‘switch off’ the way men do at the end of the day.

 

It certainly seems ironic that despite all our modern labour-saving devices, we’re actually ending up getting less sleep than our mothers and grandmothers.

 

 

or many women, the sleep problem can be traced to their entry into the economic workplace. Despite feminism and the much-vaunted advent of the ‘new man’, most household duties still devolve upon women, regardless of whether they work or not.

 

But today’s 24/7 culture has ratcheted up sleep deprivation to a new level for men, too. ‘Getting by’ on five hours sleep a night is a boardroom boast.

 

Professor Horne says this workhorse culture is counterproductive. ‘Long hours actually reduce productivity after a certain point. More mistakes are made, more people take time off work, and there is more ‘presentee-ism’, where people are in the office, but not actually coming up with very much.’

 

But with so much money vested in the insomnia business, the last thing the drug companies need is for us all to switch off our television, close down our computers and go to bed early for a refreshing, anxiety-free sleep, which, says Professor Horne, is actually what we need to do.

 

‘If you ask 1,000 people if they’d like an extra hour of sleep, 999 will say yes. But then give them that hour and watch how they spend it. It’s rarely on sleep. And then they’ll complain that they’re sleep deprived. It’s nonsense.’

 

It’s simplistic, however, to write off all sleep deprivation as merely a ‘lifestyle choice.’ Economics force many of us to trade sleep for other precious commodities – food on the table, a roof over our heads – whether we like it or not. And until society as a whole rethinks the way we work, rest and play, the companies making miracle devices to help you stay asleep longer, are likely to do brisk business.