Barry's Blog

As you are reading this, if you had the opportunity, you might  opt to snooze or slumber. Why, you ask? Because our nation is a nation in dire need of a nap. Between a fast paced, global economy that demands increased productivity, and the technologically-driven entertainment that provides a multitude of diversions, is it any wonder that people get so little rest?

An NBC Today Show/Zogby International poll indicates that nearly half of all Americans say they don't get enough sleep, and roughly twenty-five percent get fewer than six hours of shut-eye a night. Further data from the National Center of Health Statistics show a twenty-year trend of less sleep reported by Americans. Whatever the basis for this sleep deprivation, whether it be a harried lifestyle or medical problems, people are desperately seeking ways to get quality rest. Many have turned to prescriptions for sleeping pills, 42 million of which were filled last year, up 60 percent since 2000, according to the research company IMS Health. Others are following rather bizarre approaches to get rest - from bleary-eyed New Yorkers who catch a brief nap in "pods," - to an Internet blogger in Las Vegas who has adopted a "polyphasic" sleep routine - sleeping for twenty-minute stretches every four to six hours, around the clock. Go figure...

According to David White, professor of sleep medicine at Harvard University and editor of the journal Sleep, having a strategy to get the sleep we need is crucial in a culture that increasingly makes demands on our time: "This is an interesting juncture. Stress and anxiety levels are at a fever pitch, which limits the ability to sleep well. And there's  also more science than ever showing what a detriment that  the (unrested) state is to performance and health." While White does not make any value judgment about taking sleeping pills, he does admit to having a concern that "we might evolve into a society that takes a pill to wake up and a pill to go to bed."

As the debate over what constitutes a sleeping problem continues, harried Americans struggle to keep pace with daily life, especially when computers, cell phones, and surfing the Web have virtually made obsolete the very idea of "downtime." And a number of companies, like Starbucks, are cashing in. Truly, while there is no rest for the weary, Starbucks is ready to lend the groggy a hot cup of coffee. With 10,000 coffee shops worldwide (7,699 in the USA), they plan to have 10,000 more by 2010.

Some three thousand years ago, Solomon, king of Israel, offered words of wisdom about  work, ambition, and the need for rest. The advice of this ancient sage could not be more apropos for such a frenetic, restless culture as ours:

"The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much. But the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep." (Ecclesiastes 5:12)

"It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors. For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep." (Psalm 127:2)

For FinishingWell,

Barry Morrow