Our twenty-first-century economy is always on.
Ever since the invention of the mass market lightbulb in 1879, humans have been able to dominate not only the day but also the night.
However, this has come at one nasty consequence.
Today at 5:30 am, on my way to school as I pass the Princes Freeway using the William’s Landing Station overpass all you could see were rows, and rows of cars as far as the eye could see.
Why is this important?
definition: economics
- the social science of how people allocate scarce resources for production, distribution and consumption, as a collective and individual
and sleep is one of the most important decision every single day.
Individuals spend one-third of their whole lives asleep, and understanding the concept, it’s trends and how it is currently affecting the economy is crucial to have a clear picture of how macro and micro economies are functioning in the 21st century.
So, why is everyone up so early?
This is my hypothesis…
That inaccurate beliefs about sleep and its effects on the economy has caused a massive, cascading effect on the physical, mental and economic health of the globe.
The CDC (Centre for Disease Control) has declared sleep disorders a public health epidemic, with one-third of all Americans reportedly getting 6 or fewer hours of sleep a day.
Between 1990 and 2015, the number of deaths from neurological disorders increased by 36.7 percent. With the rate of Parkinson’s (up 15.7%), Alzheimer’s (up 2.4%), motor neuron disease (up 3.1%) slowly rising. This is mimicked in the rate of mental illnesses like depression increasing from 9% to almost 15% between 2005 and 2015.
Even though there are many other factors involved (like the increase in life expectancy) it can be strongly predicted these societal effects are being caused by the increased use mobile phones, social media, longer work hours, and the concurrent sleep loss feedback loop
And it’s costing us.
However, when there is pain it is also an opportunity for growth.
There are three main stakeholders that grasp at the power for a societal paradigm shift when it comes to the importance of sleep: governments, businesses, and general citizens.
Governments
In his interview with Penguin Books, Matthew Walker (sleep scientist and author of Why We Sleep), describes an interesting method for governments to impact people’s outlook towards sleep.
Public health campaigns.
Not unlike smoking, drink driving, better eating or flu campaigns. With the potential for cost-effective intervention right before us.
The ability to positively influence the next generation is enormous. By getting them the facts and changing their mindsets early we will not only be creating healthier, happier but more productive individuals…
The next potential major influence on our sleep epidemic is.
Employers.
When businesses and corporations begin to prioritise the health and sustainability of their workers’ long term, they get better results.
In my study of economics we have learnt about technical efficiency (maximising output for unit of input of resources to minimise production cost). By understanding this concept we can apply it to this analysis of how sleep is currently affecting out economy.
By making each employee more efficient it therefore raises their technical efficiency, making the company as a whole more efficient.
By decreasing turn over, having more productive hours, and a better work culture…
It’s a win-win, people work less, have more fun and businesses make more.
Imagine paying employees to work for fewer hours, but getting better results… radically improving efficiency.
Fortunately, this is already beginning to happen in sectors where exceptional talent is scarce…
Tech hubs like Silicon Valley, desperate to keep great software engineers and employees are beginning to prioritize their long term health.
With things like nap pods, shorter work hours, flexible hours, better food, incentivizing exercise… (and so much more)
Individuals respond to incentives.
When our companies begin to promote the right incentives, we can finally hope to increase our productivity and expand our PPC curve on a national level.
and finally…
Individuals.
If we finally begin to prioritize our health, communicate our values, promote and get better sleep.
Then the herd will listen.
Turn off the lights, switch off your phone, read a book, and finally get your required hours.
Not only for your health, happiness but also for your friends, family, and coworkers.
In conclusion,
However, this is where we return to the first part of my hypothesis.
‘Inaccurate beliefs about sleep’
Some people are to rightly assume that they can squeeze a few extra hours of work if they simply just sleep less. This is true, you can get more done that day… but in the long term, it’s not sustainable…
The belief that ‘sleeping is for individuals who don’t work hard’ or ‘sleeping too much is for people who are lazy’
It is true sleeping does have an opportunity cost (the benefit from alternatives not gained by making a specific decision), and it is one that costs us a third of our lives.
Many believe that the opportunity cost is too high, that they can get more done.
Prime ministers, business people, doctors, lawyers, etc… the individuals that we have chosen to admire have adopted this false belief, and now we are facing the side effects.
I believe the opportunity cost of sleeping is just too high, and the science seems to support this.
To your health, to your happiness, and to your mind.
You don’t need to sacrifice sleep to have success. You can have your cake and eat it too.
So what can you as individual do to get better sleep? and what role do you think business and governments have in influencing our daily decisions about something so private as sleep?
Bibliography
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/elon-musk-sleep-deprivation-damage-2018-8?r=US&IR=T
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-10-scope-neurological-diseases-world-today.html
https://www.sleepdr.com/the-sleep-blog/cdc-declares-sleep-disorders-a-public-health-epidemic/
https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/the-value-of-the-sleep-economy.html
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/millennial-depression-on-the-rise
Year 11 MHS Economics 2020 
Out of all things affecting technical efficiency, employee well being and specifically sleep, is certainly not something that has dominated economic conversation. However, as companies and business shift away from the stereotypical workaholic culture and towards more progressive models such as the 4 day working week, it will be interesting to see the impacts of things such as sleep on the efficiency of our economy.
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Actually, i prefer the 2 day work week tbh
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Very interesting topic and something i agree to very much. I think sleep has been misinformed and doesn’t get enough talk about how to actually get the best rest you can. A lot of people, espeically students like us tend to spend way too much time on social media, their phones, computers, or just looking at screens from devices do not actually understand how badly it can affect someone’s quality of sleep. If our society can understand correct sleep and what makes a good quality of rest, we can become so much more efficient in our daily lives and work!
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