In this series, professionals predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2016. Read the posts here, then write your own (use #BigIdeas2016 in your piece).
So here’s the big idea I think will shape 2016: sleep. That’s right, sleep! How much and how well we sleep in the coming year — and the years to follow — will determine, in no small measure, our ability to address and solve the problems we’re facing as individuals and as a society.
While our need for sleep has been a constant throughout human history, our relationship to sleep has changed throughout the centuries. And right now we’re in the middle of a sleep deprivation crisis, with devastating effects on our health, our job performance, our relationships, and our happiness.
In 1942, only 11 percent of us were getting by on less than six hours of sleep per night. Today, 40 percent of us get less than six hours. Which is probably one of the reasons for the roughly 60 million prescriptions written every year for sleeping pills. And the toll is high — with sleep deprivation costing the U.S. economy an estimated $63 billion each year. The costs don't stop there. In the U.S., drowsy drivers are involved in 328,000 accidents each year, 6,400 of which are fatal.
[For more of this story, written by Arianna Huffington, go to https://www.linkedin.com/pulse...ter-solve-huffington]
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