La gatera de Beguemot

For years, doctors have been discouraged by Americans’ disregard for and mismanagement of their sleep. (“I might as well have been running a chain of beauty parlors for the last four decades” is how one described his advocacy.) But bragging about how little you sleep, a hallmark of the ’80s power broker, is starting in certain circles to come off as masochistic buffoonery. The sleep docs we once ignored appear on morning shows to offer tips. Health professionals and marketers are hopeful that a new seriousness about sleep will continue moving out of a luxury-minded vanguard and into the mainstream. Sleep may finally be claiming its place beside diet and exercise as both a critical health issue and a niche for profitable consumer products.

Prescription sleeping pills have been the most obvious beneficiary. Forty-nine million prescriptions were written last year, up 53 percent from five years ago, according to IMS Health, a health-care information company. It is now a $3.7 billion business, more than doubling since 2003. At $3 or $4 per pill, their success indicates not only that we have an increasingly urgent craving for sleep but also that many of us have apparently forgotten how to do it altogether — quite a feat for any mammal.

Siempre me sorprende la gran cantidad de anuncios en Boston pidiendo sujetos de estudio, la inmensa mayoria mujeres entre 18-30. No es mal sueldo el que se puede recibir viviendo de eso, de residir en un hospital mientras observan tus patrones de suenho. El que te tengan despierto 72 horas mientras haces puzzles o que te vayan a tener ese tiempo con un termómetro en el recto parece exigente, no obstante.