The industry is populated by serious academics and pharmacologists but also a large community of people who make grand claims about sleep supplements despite limited scientific evidence of their effectiveness.
Globally-respected scientists like Masashi Yanagisawa at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and Matthew Walker at the University of California, Berkeley, have made serious progress in understanding the triggers for sleep and wakefulness, as well as the symphonic stages of sleep, oscillating between REM sleep, in which we dream, and deep dreamless sleep dominated by long waves that “wash” the brain and help clear the amyloids strongly linked with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
But with so much we still do not know, snake-oil treatments proliferate. As Leo Lewis in the Financial Times commented last week, “[Sleep] remains a flat-out mystery. Anyone who says otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.”
Walker also offers some valuable cautions.“In biology, it’s often rare that there are any free lunches … Nature has optimised our systems so exquisitely that when you try to game the system for one thing, be mindful that it may come at the cost of something else.”
Despite the warnings, sleep stress has become so endemic worldwide that millions trawl the internet daily in search of miracle solutions. According to the World Sleep Trends report, published by the US-based healthcare group Plushcare, the most pervasive hunters of sleep aids pop up in surprising places.
According to the report, Denmark and Sweden are also among the least sleep-deprived. The report lists the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden as having the world’s longest sleepers, with roughly between 75 and 77 per cent of their adult populations sleeping seven hours a night.
It also seems to have been driven by the trend of working from home, in which the sharp division between work in the workplace and relaxation at home has been confounded. Meanwhile, sleep apnoea in the US is probably linked to rising obesity levels.
03:16
Where China’s stressed-out young professionals go to get some shut-eye
Where China’s stressed-out young professionals go to get some shut-eye
Strikingly, the sleep aid boom may be linked with the global “wellness” movement and the creativity of marketers worldwide.
As Lewis noted, “Competition for our wakeful spending has fought itself into ever-smaller corners of wallets and imaginations. But the battle for the third of our lives that we spend asleep still feels wide open to further commercial exploitation.
“The industry, in all its ingenuity, has honed ever-greater skill in casting sleep as both the pathology (terrible things happen to the individual and the economy if you do not get enough) and panacea (amazing things happen if you do) of modern life.”
Perhaps most striking is the emergence of sleep tourism destinations as expressions of one-upmanship in our normal quest for a good night’s sleep – like the Alchemy of Sleep programme at the Rosewood Hotel in London, StarStruck Glamping in Texas and the Six Senses Spa in Thimpu, Bhutan.
For anyone able to resist the siren-call of snake-oil treatments, researchers and health professionals suggest the path to good sleep hygiene can be simpler – and definitely a great deal cheaper: finish dinner at least three hours before bed; avoid caffeine after lunch; keep alcohol to a minimum; have a regular bedtime routine; and, make sure the bedroom is dark, quiet and cool.
And, from a personal point of view, a bedtime story never did any harm.
David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific over the past four decades