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

David Dodwell

Published: 5:30am, 4 May 2024

Why you can trust SCMP

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.”

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.

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.

Deep sleep helps flush away toxins in the brain that build up during waking hours. Photo: Shutterstock

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.

World leaders are Swedes, who average an annual 86,000 searches per million of their population, with Norway (85,000) and Denmark (80,000) close behind – all of them among the world’s happiest countries, according to the World Happiness Index 2024.

People enjoy the Danish capital of Copenhagen in August 2022. Danes are said to be among the least sleep-deprived in the world. Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

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.

By contrast, the report indicates the world’s most sleep-deprived come from Qatar, Iran and South Korea, where about 42 per cent to just over 45 per cent manage to get at least seven hours of sleep. The researchers speculate that for countries in the Middle East at least, their annual averages are pulled down by sleeplessness during the fasting month of Ramadan.

The booming demand for sleep aids seems undoubtedly linked with rising work stress and the “polycrisis” we are living through, focused on armed conflicts, the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and the sudden surge in inflation.

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

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