They may teach you how to relax using stress and anxiety management techniques and help you optimize your sleeping conditions. The most common treatment for sleeplessness is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), which aims to establish and maintain healthy habits around sleeping, sometimes collectively known as “sleep hygiene.”Ī CBT-I therapist might help you reduce stimulation before bed by avoiding caffeine or turning off the late-night news. Some studies even suggest a link to Alzheimer’s and dementia. It’s been linked to a higher risk of chronic illnesses like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. Mental health issues, like depression or anxiety, may worsen. Often, lack of sleep leads to irritability and difficulty concentrating. The question to keep in mind when looking for a sleep gadget is why you can’t sleep in the first place: Much like traditional therapy aims to do, the devices that are most likely to help are those that tackle sleeplessness at its root. Sleep scientists who talked to Quartz say that while some devices can help-if they’re used correctly-others rely on nascent, unproven technology.
Sleep-monitoring bracelets, brainwave-stimulating headbands, motion-sensing mattresses, and even huggable robots now make up a market that was worth $12.5 billion in 2020 and is expected to more than triple in value by 2027, according to Global Market Insights, thanks to an increasing prevalence in sleep disorders. Meditation apps, like the one I use, are just the tip of the consumer sleep-tech iceberg. But in recent years, there’s been an explosion of gadgets and apps promising better sleep through technology. Therapy and medication are the gold standard of treatment for sleeplessness. Even prior to the pandemic, Google searches for “insomnia” were already spiking every night around 3am.
In a 2012 study on sleeplessness in Africa and Asia, World Health Organization scientists warned of a “global epidemic” of sleep problems. Data collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2014 shows that more than 35% of US adults get fewer than the recommended seven hours of sleep, and close to 50% say they get sleepy during the day multiple times a week.
Another study revealed a 20% uptick in sleeping pill use between March and April 2020.īut sleeplessness plagued us long before Covid-19. US Google searches for insomnia rose 58% in the first five months of 2020. And a handful of studies support these trends: One paper, a meta-review of 44 studies on sleeplessness during Covid-19, concluded that 40% of people across 13 countries were having trouble sleeping during the pandemic. Like many people, I’ve had trouble sleeping because I’m stressed and anxious about the pandemic-a condition some health experts have termed “coronasomnia.” A wealth of anecdotal evidence shows that people struggled to sleep during the pandemic. More than just a lovely reminiscence of childhood, they’ve become a necessary distraction from my usual bedtime habit of getting under the covers and freaking out about everything going wrong in the world. Since then, bedtime stories have become a consistent part of my nightly routine. Out of desperation one night, I listened, skeptical that the deep voice of the actor Cillian Murphy, murmuring about Ireland’s coasts, could actually deliver me unto dreamland. Then I discovered that the meditation app I’d been using hosted a library of bedtime stories-pleasantly uneventful tales about train journeys and nature hikes, read by various gentle-voiced narrators as if to a sleepy child.