How The World Forgot To Sleep

We are scraping by on less rest than ever before, and it’s draining our health and happiness. Yet still we struggle to make good sleep a priority. It’s not that we can’t nod off– we just… well, won’t. MH investigates the real cost of lost shut-eye and asks whether we can relearn how to rest easy.

- Joanna Fuertes

Both sides of the pillow have become uncomfortably warm.

It’s now light outside, and your mind races with thoughts of work, or thoughts about thinking, and endless replays of that one time you called your boss “Dad”.

During the day, you look and feel as though your face is melting. You’re jealous of babies and cats, smug in their slumber, as you cling to your third coffee of the day. Yet somehow, by 1am, you’re on your fourth episode of Wild Wild Country in a row and writing out to-do lists, as if you hadn’t just spent the entire day exhausted and wanting to be back in bed.

According to the World Health Organisation, you are likely part of the “sleep-loss epidemic”. Two-thirds of adults in developed nations are now falling short of the recommended eight hours a night. But while there has been a global rise in sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnoea, this is less a medical issue than a social one. Even those with the capacity to sleep well aren’t doing enough of it.

In Japan, where the epidemic is at its most extreme, the average time spent asleep is just six hours and 22 minutes. There are even phrases in the language for falling asleep in public (inemuri) and dying from the exhaustion of overwork (karÅshi). Here in SA, we’re doing better, averaging around seven hours and 20 minutes a night**. However, it’s estimated that only 27% of us squeeze in the recommended eight hours of shut-eye.

The British neuroscientist Matthew Walker is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the author of