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Health & Fitness
OpinionWorld Opinion
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Outside In | Sleep is a booming business. Here’s why that’s a problem

  • Getting a good night’s sleep has become a lucrative business with a range of solutions from supplements to sleep tourism being touted
  • The industry is populated by serious academics and pharmacologists but, with so much we still do not know, snake-oil treatments also proliferate

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Sleep stress has become so endemic worldwide that millions trawl the internet daily in search of miracle solutions. Photo: Shutterstock
David Dodwell
Credit to Harper’s Bazaar for cutting to the quick: “Sleep is the new sex: everyone, everywhere, is discussing who’s getting it, who needs more and whether theirs is better than anyone else’s.”
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Of course, they were exaggerating a little. I’m sure there are many hundreds of millions in the poorest parts of the world, or the most conflict-ridden areas, who have more pressing things on their minds than sleep. This is perhaps why sleep equality was touted as the theme for World Sleep Day 2024.

But long-gone are the days when difficulties in getting to sleep were treated with an open window, a cup of hot cocoa or a bedtime story. The business of getting to sleep is now a multibillion-dollar business, ranging from products like blackout curtains and bamboo pyjamas to medications such as melatonin and rapid-eye movement (REM)-enhancing acetylcholine.
Sleep technologies range from wearables and trackers to sound and light therapy. There are even services like sleep coaching, meditation, sleep-wellness spas and sleep tourism to tackle “cognitive behavioural therapy insomnia”. Beyond insomnia, treatments are now emerging for “orthosomnia” – sleeping difficulties triggered by an obsessive anxiety over the data being gathered by sleep-trackers.

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.

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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.

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