doDriving without sleep would be as dangerous as driving after having drunk two glasses of wine. This is rough information that will keep some people awake at night. Happy were the insomniacs of previous centuries who could not sleep without knowing what they were exposing themselves to when driving or taking the carriage the next day. Insomniacs of the 21stmy century, are inundated with studies that inform them about the health consequences of short nights. Obesity. Cardiovascular accident. Diabetes. Hypertension. Depression. They may spend all their sleepless nights reading scientific publications about the risks they face if they keep their eyes open.
The insomniac of the XXmy century drank chamomile, today’s century lives in the hour of quantified self, the “measurement of oneself”, in French in the text, that is, the quantification of all aspects of one’s life. The person prone to insomnia thus has all kinds of tools (connected watches, rings, applications) that allow them to wake up with a low score in deep sleep and a mediocre score in paradoxical sleep. As if sleeping poorly wasn’t enough, you also have to feel guilty.
In January 2024, when we learned that Gabriel Attal, appointed Prime Minister, was only sleeping four hours a night, the information led to an avalanche of articles about the harmful effects of lack of sleep. This is the ability to sleep well that has become an attribute of productive people. Congratulating yourself for needing only a few hours of sleep a night is as anachronistic as bragging about eating a lot of red meat. Orthosomnia, that is, the obsession with sleeping well, is no longer suffered by people who want to have breakfast in bed, but by those who want to be efficient and live longer. Seven hours of sleep is the new ten thousand steps a day.
How do we recognize them?
Out of superstition they prefer to say that they have “sleeping problems” than using the word “insomnia”. They learned about an app that allows you to measure the quality of your sleep, but also about studies that indicate that you sleep less well with a phone in the room. As they grew older, they moved from books on children’s sleep to articles on adult sleep. They use the “delayed sending” option for the emails they write at 3 am. They wonder if it is not the fault of Covid, teleworking or sedentary lifestyle. And in the meantime, they can’t fall asleep because they reflect on the effects that lack of sleep will have on their next day and on their life expectancy the next day.
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