The Sleep Hoax

As the western world faces a global sleep epidemic, technology promises to have the answer. But, asks Jennifer George, is it creating a whole new health disorder in the process?

- Jennifer George

Fiona hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in 22 years. It started when her parents got divorced. She was six, and the anxiety of watching their marriage fall apart manifested itself in long, sleepless nights. By her teens, it could be hours — three, four, sometimes more — before she fell asleep, and when she did finally drop off, it was in valueless half-hour stints through what was left of the night. She thought it would stop as she approached her twenties. It never did. “The worst part was finally getting into a deep sleep, only to have the alarm ring minutes later,” she says.

For anyone who hasn’t experienced insomnia, it’s near-impossible to imagine the frustration and pain of not being able to get a good night’s sleep. Once upon a time, we thought throwing whale music, scientifically proportioned pillows and hypnotizing aids at the problem would help. It didn’t. As a culture, few of us have understood the true value of deep sleep. For decades we fetishized those power figures — such as Margaret Thatcher, Steve Jobs and Marissa Mayer — who claimed to need only four hours’ of shut-eye a night. Not any more. Sleep is now one of the most studied health conditions in the medical world (in 2O17 the Nobel Prize in Physiology Medicine went to three scientists who figured out the gene responsible for regulating our circadian rhythms), with disrupted sleep now thought to be connected to everything from obesity to cancer.