- By Egon Cossou
- Business reporter
Have you ever laid in bed at night, unable to sleep as thoughts raced through your head?
If so, then the plight of Lisa Holland from Chesterfield in Derbyshire, may strike a chord.
“I just stopped sleeping,” he said. His insomnia worsened to the point where he only slept for a few hours each night.
Things came to a head in the early hours of a particularly inauspicious night in 2016.
The sleepless hours passed as a 90-minute motorway drive to Ms Holland’s senior job in the live events industry arrived in the morning – a perilous journey for someone who – suffer from lack of sleep.
“I was just walking around my room,” Lisa said. “I caught myself meditating, and I was like a zombie, just walking around in circles. And I thought… what are you doing? This is ridiculous.”
Lisa’s experience is becoming more common.
Almost three quarters of people in the UK (71%) do not get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night, according to a study last year by insurance group Direct Line. It found that one in seven got less than five hours.
Could increased use of apps and other technology designed to help us sleep be the solution? Many of us seem to be like that.
Sleep issues can be caused by many different factors, including stress, shift work and consumption of caffeine or alcohol. If you are part of the “insomniac army”, you may be reading this with a tinge of exhaustion, mental exhaustion or – hopefully not – anger.
But the consequences of prolonged sleep deprivation can be worse.
Of course this is not just a British problem. A third of Americans don’t get enough sleep, according to the US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, which says the situation threatens the nation’s health.
But of course none of this was on Lisa’s mind when she was forced to face her problem. All he knew was that he needed help.
His doctor initially prescribed a short course of sleeping tablets – which would knock him out for a few hours at a time, but would not guarantee quality rest.
Eventually he discovered the phenomenon of bedtime stories — soothing tales delivered through apps and podcasts. He chose those on the meditation app and website Calm.
“I slept very well today,” he said. “Even though I’m at work a lot and I’m thinking about different things – like what I have to do tomorrow,” he said. “I think it’s a comfort blanket.”
So most nights, he opens the app on his phone, selects a bedtime story, and plays it through the speaker.
“I think it’s the tone of the voices, how they lower their voices and leave longer gaps between sentences,” he said. “I think it has something to do with your thinking and listening brain.”
More and more of us struggling to fall asleep are turning to technology for help and it’s not just about soothing bedtime stories.
The emerging sleep technology market includes devices to track our sleep patterns, apps that provide restful mediation, as well as services to manage medical disorders such as sleep apnea or narcolepsy.
That technology is now recommended by health agencies. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, part of NHS England, last year recommended that people suffering from insomnia try an app called Sleepio.
Sleepio has a virtual sleep assistant called “The Prof”. Powered by AI software, it aims to help users fall asleep faster.
But despite the positives of all this technology, there can be a downside to using your device in the middle of a sleepless night, according to Lisa.
“You have to take out your phone, open the app – and if you forget to turn the light off, it’s like the Blackpool illuminations,” he said.
“And of course, then you’re scrolling. You can wake yourself up a little bit. That’s why I put myself in my favorites so that I can switch between stories as quickly as possible and return the phone directly too.”
The potential stimulant effect of technology is also a concern for sleep expert Alison Francis. “The whole idea of giving the mind a break from technology, and turning off technology, goes out the window,” he said.
His advice is to try to get people to learn from technology, so they can eventually sleep without it. “That way you can be more independent and not have to be on the phone all the time,” he said.
In addition, he added that some people need a more medically based approach, involving self-monitoring and a therapy program.
Headspace is an app that aims to help users improve their mental health through meditation. Chief product and design officer Leslie Witt says this includes a study to help people improve their sleep.
“We know we can’t be in the business of improving mental health, without the business of improving sleep,” he said. “Over a third of our members use our sleep content and are what we call sleep-first members – where the main way they engage with the app is through our sleep stories, our sleep courses our sleep music.”
That figure is said to rise to 40-50% for people who go to Headspace through a workplace-provided scheme.
The New Tech Economy is a series that explores how technological innovation is set to shape the new emerging economic landscape.
“Workplaces see sleep as critical,” added Ms Witt. “But there is still progress to be made in getting bosses to see how the demands of a global workforce can raise stress levels that disrupt sleep.”
Meanwhile, Lisa Holland thinks it’s time we recognize the importance of sleep to our overall health – and abandon the “always” culture.
“With the best will in the world, getting up at four in the morning to exercise, and then starting my day and being the first one at work and the last one out, just doesn’t work for me,” she said.
“I think a lot of people realize that you don’t have to work 17-18 hours a day. I need a work-life balance and part of that is getting enough sleep.”