The problem seems to be large-scale and relatively neglected, but not especially solvable. When people don’t sleep, it seems unlikely that their sleep is disordered than that they are choosing to do something else with their time (maybe an obligation like childcare, maybe some form of entertainment).
Example: While getting people to stop drinking puts “having soda/water/nothing” up against “having alcohol”, getting people to sleep more puts “unconsciousness” up against “the most important and/or entertaining thing you believe you can do instead”.
That said, there are clearly some modest interventions that could help some groups:
Apps like f.lux to reduce blue light exposure before sleep
Having schools (especially high schools) start classes later, to sync up with teen sleep schedules
Improving the quality of remote-work software to reduce commute times and help people start their days later
But none of these seem broad enough to make a significant dent in the problem, and I’m not aware of any charities that are doing obviously effective work in this area (though “starting school later” probably has some active advocates I’m not aware of).
getting people to sleep more puts “unconsciousness” up against “the most important and/or entertaining thing you believe you can do instead”.
Have you read the book or some review of it or watched/listened to some long form interview with Matthew Walker (just search in YouTube)?
I ask because I would have probably said the same if I hadn’t read it, but after reading the book, the equation for me is more like:
“unconsciousness + better memory + better processing of stuff I learned + better health + better mental health + being less hungry + feeling better while awake (+ more stuff mentioned in the book that I don’t remember at the moment)” up against “the most important and/or entertaining thing you believe you can do instead + worse memory + worse learning abilities + health problems + …”
Yes, I agree that sleep has many benefits, just as eating vegetables has many benefits (some of which are almost immediately apparent, just like the benefits of sleep). But while many people know about these, they still don’t sleep enough. I’m trying to get at the reasons I think people take these harmful actions, not arguing that sleeping as little as possible is correct/rational :-)
The problem seems to be large-scale and relatively neglected, but not especially solvable. When people don’t sleep, it seems unlikely that their sleep is disordered than that they are choosing to do something else with their time (maybe an obligation like childcare, maybe some form of entertainment).
Example: While getting people to stop drinking puts “having soda/water/nothing” up against “having alcohol”, getting people to sleep more puts “unconsciousness” up against “the most important and/or entertaining thing you believe you can do instead”.
That said, there are clearly some modest interventions that could help some groups:
Apps like f.lux to reduce blue light exposure before sleep
Having schools (especially high schools) start classes later, to sync up with teen sleep schedules
Improving the quality of remote-work software to reduce commute times and help people start their days later
But none of these seem broad enough to make a significant dent in the problem, and I’m not aware of any charities that are doing obviously effective work in this area (though “starting school later” probably has some active advocates I’m not aware of).
Have you read the book or some review of it or watched/listened to some long form interview with Matthew Walker (just search in YouTube)?
I ask because I would have probably said the same if I hadn’t read it, but after reading the book, the equation for me is more like:
“unconsciousness + better memory + better processing of stuff I learned + better health + better mental health + being less hungry + feeling better while awake (+ more stuff mentioned in the book that I don’t remember at the moment)” up against “the most important and/or entertaining thing you believe you can do instead + worse memory + worse learning abilities + health problems + …”
Yes, I agree that sleep has many benefits, just as eating vegetables has many benefits (some of which are almost immediately apparent, just like the benefits of sleep). But while many people know about these, they still don’t sleep enough. I’m trying to get at the reasons I think people take these harmful actions, not arguing that sleeping as little as possible is correct/rational :-)
I knew (generally) about the benefits of sleep before I read the book, but reading the book made this “knowing” extremely more vivid.
The thing that makes me so optimistic about getting people to sleep more is that sleep is something our body actively urges us to do.
Like our body actively urges us to eat a lot of sugar (e.g., and not vegetables), it actively urges us to sleep (unless we use caffeine, etc.).