If Rip Van Winkle was alive today, he’d be in great demand. Newspaper interviews, late night TV shows, the cop on the corner, all with the same question---hey Rip, what was in that grog that put you to sleep for 18 years---we could use a little ourselves? Americans are desperate for better sleep and they’re spending piles of money to get it.
The modern-day sleep industry, which includes everything from mattresses to wearable devices to supplements is booming, projected to take in a record high $585 billion in 2024. As one example, the global sleep apnea devices market, just one subset of the sleep economy, is projected to pull in $13.5 billion this year. More than a third of U.S. adults claim they slept worse in 2023 than the previous year according to a survey by Sleepfoundation.org., which posits that sleep deprivation is an epidemic affecting physical and mental health. Just ask Michael Jackson.
Venture capital for sleep tech almost doubled between 2017 and 2021. One third of Americans have tried a sleep tracker, according to a 2023 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. These devices run between $200 and $300 and monitor physical signs such as heart rate and body movement overnight. A tracker might advise that you get more and better sleep wearing an eye mask or avoiding alcohol or not watching Florida Gator football games. The majority of people who have tried trackers claim they’re helpful and were inspired by them to change their behavior.
Meanwhile, Time magazine reports that the U.S. mattress industry doubled between 2015 and 2020. “Smart” mattresses, which generally cost between $2000 and $5000 are a growing section of that market. These futuristic beds offer a range of features such as the ability to monitor both a person’s body and the sleep environment. Some can even make automatic adjustments in temperature and firmness if they sense that these factors would optimize someone’s sleep.
Other novel products such as eye masks with unique features, weighted blankets and specially designed pillows for every sleep position are being bought up enthusiastically by weary non-sleepers. Many users report benefits, others continue to rend their garments in frustration. The big question is Why? What’s the root cause of increased sleepless nights? A Gallup Poll found 57% of Americans are sleeping less because they’re stressed. And they’re additionally stressed because they’re not sleeping more. Wakeful nights are more than inconvenient---they can lead to such thrilling outcomes as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, weight gain and cognitive impairment, not to mention falling down and breaking your nose. The nation turns its weary eyes to you, Mr. Natural. Can anyone or anything save us from ourselves?
The Envelope, Please
Almost everyone knows the routine suggestions for avoiding sleeplessness; make the bedroom sleep-friendly, go to sleep at the same time every night, avoid caffeine and alcohol at least six hours before going to bed, get regular physical exercise several hours before retiring. All wise suggestions, but insufficient for the majority of tossers and turners. Melatonin works for many, but is better for getting to sleep than staying there. Valerian will help keep you asleep but has some scary features. One morning, after a good sleep on Valerian, I was happily driving wide-awake to Ocala from home and next thing I knew I was in the oncoming lane of traffic. It was just a second or so and I quickly recovered, but if a car had been coming from the opposite direction I might be toast. That was the last time I took valerian and the problem has never recurred. If you don’t drive, however, it’s not an issue and valerian usually helps.
Zolpidem is an option. It works very quickly, usually within a half-hour, but is just a temporary solution. The drug can be habit-forming and the user will eventually have trouble sleeping without it. Zolpidem also has some unhappy possible side effects, like dizziness and constipation. As with valerian, next-day driving should be verboten. Other sleep aids which may be purchased OTC are Diphenhydramine (Benedryl) and Doxylamine (Unisom), both with similar side effects as Zolpidem. Check with your pharmacist to learn whether any sleep aid conflicts with your regular medications. You wouldn’t want to turn into a frog or find yourself on Main Street baying at the moon. If you do discover yourself doing the latter, say hello to Randall Roffe for us.
Alternatives:
Luc Beaudoin has done a lot of thinking about the sleeplessness problem and he has a few ideas. Beaudoin surmises the sleep/wake switch in our brains needs to know it’s safe for us to go to sleep before letting us crash. The brain reads the room, scans the activity in our cortex to see if it’s doing things that suggest we ought to stay awake or other things which suggest it’s okay to pass out. If you’re involved in mental activity which is oriented around coherent thoughts and attempts to make sense of things, the sleep/wake part of your brain is going to intuit that it’s not safe to go to sleep. So what might happen if you purposefully engage in incoherent nonsense thoughts and images? Is this the Holy Grail in the search for sleep? Your mind is blocked from engaging in worrying and sensible thoughts which keep you awake, but also enables you to access your brain’s sleep switch more directly by essentially mimicking what it does right before falling asleep.
Here is a simplification of Beaudoin’s Cognitive Shuffle strategy:
1. As you’re lying in bed, think of a random, emotionally neutral word that has at least five letters, like BEDTIME.
2. Think of a second word that begins with the letter B, like BIGHEAD and visualize that item. Keep it up with BANANA, BEDBUG, BLATHERSKATE, visualizing each.
3. If and when you run out of Bs, move on to another letter and repeat the process. If you’re still awake, keep it up until you have either fallen asleep or completed the dictionary.
If all this seems like so much foolishness, consider that Beaudoin and his colleagues recruited 154 university students who reported having difficulty shutting off their brains at sleepy-time. All completed questionnaires to measure their level of alertness before going to bed, how much effort it usually took to get to sleep and the quality of that sleep. They were then randomly assigned to various sleep strategies. The group using an imagery-based mind-wandering strategy like the one above answered another questionnaire one month later and had significant improvement in all three areas---quality of sleep, ease of getting to sleep and mental state before going to bed. So there.
Once all the simple suggestions for enhanced sleep have been tried and failed, it might be time to wander off into more remote pastures. Luc Beaudoin is waiting to welcome you in. Here, have a BANANA.
Blinded By The Light
You’ve tried everything reasonable and nothing works. Time to climb up into the sleep attic and dig through the boxes of weird stuff. Here’s what we’ve found so far:
Clarence in Maine swears by this one: “When I was a little kid, I thought Bigfoot was staring at me through my window at night. If I moved even one bit he would break through and kill me, like Bigfeet do. I would be so focused on staying perfectly still that it helped me fall asleep in a minute or two. Okay, I was a weird kid, but it worked.”
Charlie in South Dakota used to lay awake for hours, thinking someone might break in and stab him. One night he decided to lay on his side and turn his head to face the ceiling. “That way if someone broke in and tried to stab me they would think I was lying on my back and only stab me in the side, not in the chest',” he reasoned. “Once I had that covered, I went to sleep right away.”
Streetside says everybody should try being homeless for a few days. “Sleeping conditions really suck. You could get beat up, someone might rob you, the cops hassle you all the time and sometimes it’s freezing. You have to find ways to get to sleep in spite of it all. I remember stuffing bubblewrap in my clothes to stay warm and keeping an axe under my pillow to defend myself. After a little bit of this, you can sleep through anything. Having an actual bed is like heaven.”
Greta guarantees that meditation works. “Most people know the drill but they give up. I have to admit it also took me a while to get the hang of it. You have to just empty your mind. If some train of thought starts to invade, cast it out right away. Essentially, just stop thinking, focus on emptying your mind. Maybe focus on breathing. It breaks the habit of overthinking everything, which keeps you awake.”
Eddie likes noise. “I need a light fan blowing to keep the other noises out. Sometimes, I need it blowing on me if I’m not in my own house to keep me cool. White noise from the TV on an empty station works, too. I cover the screen with a towel to keep out the light. Then I pretend to sleep and I usually go right off. If none of that works, well, 100 mgs. of Trazadone will do the job. 400 mgs. if you’re hopeless.
Shelley read that in World War II, the Air Force trained pilots to fall asleep fast so they’d be rested and ready for sudden missions. “They focused on relaxing all the muscles in the body, starting from the head and ending at the feet. I relax the muscles at the top of my head, then my face, shoulders, etc. I don’t think I’ve ever made it past my shoulders before falling asleep.”
Molly says “No caffeine. At all. EVER!” And she has a lot of company.
Jorge advises “Join the Army. They’ll work you so hard you’ll learn to sleep anytime you can…standing…daytime….next to an active helicopter…near gunfire. If you can find a way to sleep when people are actively trying to kill you, then dealing with the stress you get from Brenda in accounting seems pretty easy.”
And finally, this from Maria. It works, we tried it. “Put an album by Ian and Sylvia on your disc player, volume not too high, CD player on the other side of the room. You won’t make it past the third song. Works every time.”
Nothing works for everyone, but it just takes one appropriate modus operandi to send you to the Land of Nod. Let us know what works for you. We’ll be up at seven a.m. Or maybe six, depending….
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That’s all, folks….
