Sleep Is the New Status Symbol (nytimes.com)

The New York Times has a good story on how sleep is increasingly becoming a big business -- and the tech industry is rushing in to tweak our natural rhythms. From the article: At M.I.T.'s Media Lab, the digital futurist playground, David Rose is investigating swaddling, bedtime stories and hammocks, as well as lavender oil and cocoons. [...] Meanwhile, at the University of California, Berkeley, Matthew P. Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology and the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory there, is working on direct current stimulation as a cure for sleeplessness in the aging brain. [...] In Paris, Hugo Mercier, a computer science engineer, has invested in sound waves. He has raised over $10 million to create a headband that uses them to induce sleep. [...] Ben Olsen, an Australian entrepreneur, hopes to introduce Thim, a gadget you wear on your finger that uses sound to startle you awake every three minutes for an hour, just before you go to sleep. [...] Sleep entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and beyond have poured into the sleep space, as branders like to say -- a $32 billion market in 2012 -- formerly inhabited by old-style mattress and pharmaceutical companies.

Comments

Re: Sleep transferrence

[narcc]

poor people (no money, lots of time) [...] rich people (no time, lots of money)

That's delusional. No one has less time than the working poor, who are often forced to work more than one job. Toss a family in the mix and you'll often see one parent working two jobs, a full and a part-time, with the other just working full time. Why not a fourth job? They don't have the time as they need to handle the kid's schedule, from school activities to doctors appointments. For them, time is at a premium, and sleep is a luxury.

In contrast, wealthy people have nothing but free time. There are exceptions, of course, but those are more often by choice, rather than necessity.

Don't delude yourself in to thinking the poor are poor because they don't work hard. They certainly work a lot harder, for a lot longer, than I do. I'll bet the same is true for you.