Sleep deprivation was only outed as the devil, at a populist level, from the mid 2000’s. Journalist, Arianna Huffington, showed us who the real monster under our bed was. Our concerns were only amplified as ‘wearable tech’ visualized our poor sleep as a graph. And in 2006, sleep disorders guru Michael J. Breus, PhD wrote Amazon top 100 best seller, ‘Good Night: The Sleep Doctor’s 4-Week Program to Better Sleep and Better Health’.
And then, a plot twist.
All this activity coincided (a coincidence?), with a dramatic increase in the use of prescription-only sleep medications. And a doubling of ER visits between 2006 and 2010, related to the misuse of them. Of course, these and the latest over the counter sleep medications were never designed to solve our sleep issues or be taken as long-term solutions. (I discovered this the hard way myself over a decade ago.) Yet they are.
Achieving quality sleep is best done through natural means, or it cannot be healthy or sustainable.
In the years it took me to fix my own sleep issues - years of reading, researching, tweaking and experimenting - I’ve come to the steadfast belief that achieving quality sleep, long term, is best done through natural means, or it cannot be healthy and certainly not sustainable.
I’m not saying we should never take medicine or use machinery like a CPAP, especially if our life depends on it. I am saying however, that western civilization all too readily pops a pill because it seems easy, without working to fix it naturally first (ie: weight loss, eating for sleep, use of light, breath training, relaxation, changing habits, CBT to help change habits; the list of options is long and varied.)
Through my own searching - 100’s of sleep tips, self-help books (oh so many books), meditation guru’s, new philosophies, retreats and trial and error, mostly error - I found the quality sleep I needed.
This was the core reason we started You Are What You Sleep; to help people cut through the myriad of options (mostly unnatural) in order to enjoy quality natural and sustainable sleep. And ultimately, the wellbeing that follows.