In an article for The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington calls for a ‘sleep revolution’ in 2016 that involves people renewing their relationship with sleep and recognizing its importance.
In 1942, only 11 percent of us were getting by on less than six hours of sleep per night. Today, 40 percent of us get less than six hours. Which is probably one of the reasons for the roughly 60 million prescriptions written every year for sleeping pills. And the toll is high — with sleep deprivation costing the U.S. economy an estimated $63 billion each year. The costs don’t stop there. In the U.S., drowsy drivers are involved in 328,000 accidents each year, 6,400 of which are fatal.
What we need is nothing short of a sleep revolution. And the good news is, there is evidence all around us that this revolution is actually in its early stages, with the potential to reach new heights in 2016.
In every industry and sector of society — in business, in schools, in medicine, in sports, in the arts — more and more people are recognizing the importance of sleep.
