From trackers to gummies and CCTV, society has been gripped by sleep hysteria | Alice Gregory

2026-03-20 - 10:09

We’re obsessing about sleep like never before. But much of the messaging is exaggerated, distorted and unhelpful A few decades back, people didn’t care as much about sleep. Margaret Thatcher led by example, getting only four hours a night. But over recent years, there’s been pushback on the narrative that sleep doesn’t matter. It does. Anyone who has worked night shifts, had their nights disrupted by a newborn baby or delved into gruesome historical literature about sleep will agree. In the 1960s, a high-school student in the US, Randy Gardner, was kept awake for 11 days for a study on the impact of sleep deprivation. He experienced symptoms including delusions, irritability and a lack of coordination. More recently, scientific literature has highlighted links between the way we sleep and our mental and physical health. This has all led to the realisation that sleep matters, and it becoming a particular focus of the wellness industry. There are sleep trackers, podcasts, influencers, supplements and smelly sprays to help. Sleep dismissal appears to have now been replaced by sleep hysteria. Alice Gregory is co-director of the Royal Holloway Sleep Laboratory and author of Nodding Off: the Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave Continue reading...