See my 10-minute talk on the power and possibilities of sleep: Imagine Talk
In 2016, the RAND Corporation published a cross-country, comparative analysis entitled Why Sleep Matters – the Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep. The analysis drew on a substantial body of previous research as well as novel analyses of sleep trends, associations, and costs in five countries/territories, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Canada, which are part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The following are key findings taken directly from the 101-page report.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States has declared insufficient sleep a public health problem. More than a third of American adults are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis.
Insufficient sleep duration has been linked with seven of the fifteen leading causes of death in the United States, including cardiovascular disease, malignant neoplasm, cerebrovascular disease, accidents, diabetes, septicemia and hypertension.
Sleep loss and sleep-related disorders have been associated with several accidents and catastrophes including the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, the Three Mile Island nuclear incident, the Exxon Valdez spill and the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy.
According to a National Sleep Foundation (2006) survey, more than 87 percent of high school students in the United States get far less than the recommended hours of sleep, and the amount of sleep they get is decreasing. This poses a serious threat to their health and academic success.
Considering the link between sleep duration and mortality, at any given point in time, an individual that sleeps on average less than six hours per night has a 13 percent higher mortality risk compared to an individual sleeping between seven and nine hours.
Workers who sleep less than six hours per day report on average a 2.4 percentage point higher productivity loss due to absenteeism or presenteeism than workers sleeping between seven to nine hours per day. This equates to six working days lost (in a 250 working day cycle) more than someone sleeping 7-9 hours.
On an annual basis, the U.S. loses an equivalent of about 1.23 million working days due to insufficient sleep. This corresponds to about 9.9 million working hours. Canada had the least impact in the analysis, with about 0.6 million working hours lost. In comparison of the five countries (US, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada), the US had the highest percentage sleeping less than six hours per night (18%). Canada was at 6%.
Economic cost of lost sleep for US was projected to be up to 456 billion dollars per year (2.53% of GDP) for 2025. Canada’s cost for 2025 was estimated up to $22.5 billion (1.42% of GDP). Cumulative loss in terms of GDP from time of study (2016) to 2030 for US is estimated at almost 7 trillion dollars. These costs are associated with premature mortality (reducing size of work population), absenteeism, reduced work performance (presenteeism), and sub-optimal adolescent school performance (inhibiting skill acquisition).
According to some evidence, people nowadays tend to get one to two hours less sleep each night compared to their ancestors 50 or 100 years ago.
Factors consistently linked with shorter sleep include the following: sex (male), obesity /BMI (higher), working hours (longer), commuting time (longer), shift work, financial concerns, lower education levels, having young children, being single rather than married, providing unpaid care (for friends/family members), being a current cigarette smoker, alcohol consumption (more), sugary drinks (more), exercise (less), and depression/anxiety. Longer sleep (greater than nine hours) is consistently associated with chronic health conditions such as cancer or cardiovascular problems.
Existing evidence suggests that the relationship between duration of sleep and health outcomes is U-shaped, highlighting that too little sleep (short sleep duration) and too much sleep (long sleep duration) are both associated with elevated risks of stroke, coronary heart disease, hypertension, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and mortality.
Why does sleep present a unique opportunity to improve the economy?
All areas of lifestyle are intricately linked to the economic plight of a community. But sleep presents unique opportunities that other areas don’t. While population improvements in nutrition hold great promise, there are a few key barriers that make this difficult to address. One, food is a central source of many people’s daily happiness, stress relief, and comfort. While most people understand that unhealthy eating creates added health risks, including premature mortality, the idea of giving up (or even reducing intake of) foods that bring immediate pleasure/comfort has proven to be fraught with resistance on an individual and population level.
Second, there is a significant industry built around the marketing and selling of unhealthy foods, thus while this provides a detriment to population health and insurance costs, it provides a boon for a service-based economy. Restaurant growth has skyrocketed in the past couple of decades when compared to population growth, and it could be argued that while all of this has not been a positive development for the health of our nation, it has provided a reliable source of revenue and employment opportunities, not to mention for the medical staff treating GI and other related health issues. Furthermore, there has been an argument (although challenged in certain areas of research) that eating healthy is more expensive, thus perceived as more difficult for those with lessor means.
Third, nutrition (and exercise) is strongly linked to powerful motivators: effort and shame. The effort required to change nutrition habits and exercise routines might be beneficial, but many people struggle to sustain this in a way that makes meaningful, long-term differences. Similarly, there is increased focus in the public square about perceived shaming as it relates to obesity and sedentary behavior. While few regard these trends in a positive light as it pertains to health & well-being, there is a growing movement towards embracing body types of all kinds and “calling out” those who are perceived to be “fat shaming.”
All of these variables don’t suggest that innovative public policy solutions aren’t needed to improve practices and trends in these areas (as they are), but it does indicate that the barriers are many when it comes to this and other areas of lifestyle.
Sleep is different. Although not without barriers, it presents opportunities that other health factors (including reasonable technology use) simply don’t possess. For starters, there isn’t a sizable industry built around the production of sleep, although certainly there are certain devices (e.g., apps, noise machines) that are advertised to help it. There also isn’t the stigma associated with sleep that other areas possess. To even publicly acknowledge that one struggles to sleep well is a “far cry” from walking around 100 pounds overweight or indicating that you haven’t exercised in a long time. In fact, it’s not uncommon (despite being unhealthy) for people to brag about sleeping less than recommended amounts and still purportedly managing well. Sleep just isn’t linked to shame as other areas are.
Furthermore, while development of good sleep hygiene and conducive sleep environments requires some initial prioritization and effort, the amount of work and cost is minimal to nothing in key areas. Unlike the contention that healthy eating, gym memberships, and athletic equipment are only financially viable for a certain portion of the population, good sleep hygiene and a restful environment cost less than an over-stimulated approach and environment. Once the environment and routine are established, and a person has developed a sound approach to sleep, there is a final golden reality. Sleep, unlike almost every other intervention, requires no effort. All the benefits of sleep occur via mechanisms that are outside of our conscious control.
Imagine we were given a gift, one which was free, renewable for a lifespan, and required no effort. The gift helps regulate our emotions, reduce our anxiety, consolidate our memories, and process the events of our day. It resets and refreshes us, provides energy, helps repair and rejuvenate our bodies, reduces disease risk, improves immunity, helps regulate weight, and for those still growing, is directly associated with the release of key hormones. It even helps our skin to look younger and healthier.
It almost appears too good to be true, and yet there is a massive amount of evidence that supports this contention. And while there is no doubt many challenges to good sleep, and a proliferation in the prescription of sleep meds to try and remedy this, studies indicate that 80-90% of sleep problems can be addressed through non-pharmacological means. Many of these means occur right at home, with almost no additional “tools” required.
Sleep requires minimal to no additional expenditures, limited to no effort, is not linked to a robust financial industry nor is it associated with shame or stigma that creates resistance. It comes with countless benefits whether you are a child or the elderly. It’s available to everyone. Considering all this, sleep is unrivalled, both on an individual and community level. Its potential for improving the health of a population and economics of an organization and community can hardly be overstated, and yet it’s largely untapped and almost never, ever finds itself as part of a city council meeting or a mayoral initiative. Now let’s consider just how impactful it could really be.
A community perspective: What would 15 more minutes of sleep for Vanderburgh County residents mean for the economy?
In the RAND analysis projected for 2025, researchers looked at multiple scenarios regarding the degree of economic improvement if sleep improved. The first scenario projected the net loss (or improvement) that would occur annually if all short sleepers (less than seven hours) got the recommended amount of sleep for adults (7-9 hours). This was estimated to be 456.1 billion dollars for 2025. The second scenario looked at the financial impact if very short sleepers (under six hours) got at least 6-7 hours per night. This was 260.3 billion dollars. The third scenario examined the cost if only short sleepers (6-7 hours) got the recommended sleep (7-9 hours) while very short sleepers (under six hours) were unaffected. This was estimated at 301.1 billion dollars.
Translating these projections using the Vanderburgh County population numbers (for 2025), scenario one yields slightly less than 240.8 million, scenario two is just less than 137.4 million, and scenario three is just over 158.9 million. According to Federal Reserve Economic Data, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Vanderburgh County in 2024 (last available year of data) was 15.63 billion dollars. This means that using scenario one, this accounts for approximately 1.5% of the GDP for Vanderburgh County.
Two caveats are important to note here. One, while it is important to understand the overall economics of sleep, no amount of focus or intervention are likely to improve sleep to the degree noted in the three scenarios. Two, while categorical analysis was used to estimate the economic costs, the impact of sleep is not confined to whether individuals moved into a specific category (e.g., from less than six hours to 6-7 hours). Rather, research has indicated that the impact of sleep exists on a continuum, and that even an additional 10-15 minutes per night of sleep (for short sleepers) can result in a myriad of positive gains, including improved problem-solving skills, focus, increased retention, and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. Other studies have found physical improvements in athletic performance and cardiovascular functioning as well as a significant reduction in the likelihood of accidents. In general, studies also find that small, incremental additions to sleep can reduce the impact of long-term sleep deprivation on brain development.
A March 2026 review of research published in the journal of Pediatrics Perspectives further highlights just why targeting small improvements in sleep are likely to provide the greatest impact, and how different areas (e.g., smartphone usage, psychoeducation around sleep hygiene) can be utilized to bring about incremental growth. While gold standard recommendations for sleep at various ages are critical in providing sound education, a good percentage of parents whose kids’ sleep is far below the standards may find themselves discouraged that these guidelines are unrealistic, and thus not worth pursuing. This includes parents of youth with developmental disorders who have intrinsic difficulties with sleep. This same principle applies to many adults who are sleeping far less than the recommended amount of 7-9 hours.
Thus, any initiative targeting sleep must start and end with finding ways to improve sleep 10-15 minutes at a time. Not only does this provide a realistic, accessible way for individuals and parents to impact functioning in a positive way, it also provides a viable way to improve the economics in our region. Looking at the prior analysis, it’s impossible to provide an exact projection of what 15 minutes of additional sleep per night would add to the economy. However, using scenario three, in which short sleepers (6-7 hours) got at least seven hours a night, this translated into 158.9 million dollars. Assuming an equal distribution of sleepers across the 6-7 hour range, the impact of 15 minutes of sleep could presumably be 25% of this total, thus almost 40 million dollars of economic impact just with this shift alone. While the complexities of impact across the lifespan are impossible to quantify and compare, especially considering adolescents are currently the most sleep deprived cohort in the United States, the downstream health and economic potential of improvements in sleep are difficult to overstate.
Why good sleep is a key catalyst for improving other areas of health and well-being.
All of the seven key health factors discussed in the Vision for Evansville are interrelated to a certain degree. As a few examples, nutrition impacts a person’s activity level and ability to move, the amount of intentional (and unintentional) silence we experience impacts how we reflect and communicate, and our consumption of screen time is directly related to our exposure and opportunities to be outdoors.
But it could be argued that of all the seven factors that are key to individual and community health and well-being, sleep is the cornerstone. Beyond reasons posited earlier about why sleep presents the best opportunity for intervention and innovation, it’s important to reiterate that sleep is the single most common activity in a person’s life. With the average life expectancy in the US being about 80 years, people (should) spend about 25-30 years of their life sleeping or trying to fall asleep. It’s linked to almost every major area of functioning.
We can go more than three times as long without food than sleep. It is associated with, and even controls a huge amount, of basic bodily functions. When we are deprived of it, even for a short time, anxiety and inattention worsens, energy wanes, irritability grows, and our bodily systems don’t function optimally.
Beyond even this simple review of the importance of sleep, it’s worth considering more specifically just how it can be used as a catalyst for positive change. Take the desire to exercise more. One of the primary reasons cited for not exercising is feeling too tired and not having the time in the morning. However, even a relatively simple shift of 15-20 minutes in a bedtime routine can provide for this amount of time for movement in the morning, whether it be a walk outside or on a stationary bike reading a book. Evidence even indicates that with regard to safety, early morning hours (from 4-6 AM) demonstrate the lowest violent crime rates.
Similarly, there is evidence that sleep restriction and chronic deprivation have a significant impact on hormones, such as leptin and ghrelin, which control our appetite. While research continues to sort this out, some studies have found that sleep restriction results in feeling hungry later in the day (and not during the morning), thus reducing opportunities to metabolize food effectively for many people. Multiple studies have shown that diets are more effective when individuals get optimal sleep.
Early morning is often a prime time to be outdoors and moving for various reasons. Research indicates that cognitive benefits follow exercise for multiple hours, thus improving productivity and decision-making. Pre-twilight, twilight, and early morning hours are typically less scheduled (than daytime and evening hours) and provide a quieter, even more beautiful start to the day. But when individuals aren’t going to bed until late or waking up frequently during the middle of the night, it creates more challenges in utilizing this time for activity.
Moving onto communication, sleep deprivation is undoubtedly a key moderator (or even mediator, at times) of emotional dysregulation, which is strongly associated with ineffective communication. Chronic sleep deprivation reduces our emotional awareness and regulation, and thus negatively impacts core skills like empathy, if…then consequential thinking, and ultimately collaborative communication. For parents, especially working parents, key opportunities to communicate and process with each other often come in later hours of the day (7-10 PM) or in the morning hours for those that work a second or third shift. However, when children’s sleep schedules are awry, opportunities for critical, adult communication between parents are diminished or even thwarted altogether. With this comes increased stress, frustration, disillusionment, and even alienation, as the loss of effective communication prevents opportunities for care, connection, intimacy, understanding, and empathy that are essential to healthy relationships. While it is a stretch to blame chronic sleep deprivation (of kids or adults) as a sole causal factor for neglect, abuse, separation, and divorce, abundance evidence indicates that it is most certainly a primary component in these types of negative outcomes.
Simply put, good, effective sleep habits and environment set the stage for health & well-being for individuals and communities as well as economic stability and growth. While there are certain uncontrollable (or difficult to control) factors that can impact sleep negatively, even when proper routines/environment exist, the reality is that in every household, there are simple, cost-effective, accessible means to pursue 15 more minutes of sleep, in situations where restriction or deprivation exists.
What are practical ways to create a community of good sleep?
In the RAND report, specific recommendations were made for individuals, employers, and public officials (pgs. 54-60) to improve overall sleep outcomes, of which a tiny portion of detail exists below. Each section includes key, collaborative considerations of ways that a community can support healthy sleep patterns. Six primary areas were targeted for individuals as means of addressing chronic sleep problems: consistent wake-up time, only using bed for sleep (and sex), not remaining in bed for extended periods of time when awake, reduced use of electronic devices before bedtime, limited or non-use of substances (e.g., nicotine, caffeine, alcohol) that reduce sleep quality, regular exercise, and addressing stressful issues well before bedtime.
Regarding employers, focus was twofold. One, addressing organizational culture and focus in ways that promotes optimal sleep opportunities for employees, such as incentivizing good sleep habits or providing regular initiatives encouraging good sleep. Two, emphasis was placed on the workplace environment, such as creating brighter workplaces, ready access to exercise equipment, and reduction of risks or practices that might impact staff sleep.
For public authorities, focus was placed on raising general awareness of the benefits and accessibility of good sleep, providing training for various professionals to promote positive sleep practices, and incentivizing employers to encourage positive practices. Emphasis was also placed on maximizing workplace mandates that already exist as well as looking at existing structural factors, such as adjusting school start times, which have previously shown positive results in other communities.
Beneath all these recommendations though, remains an overarching consideration that has plagued many well-intentioned recommendations and initiatives. How do you get people engaged, enthusiastic, and willing to mobilize on an issue that is typically seen as mundane and not central to life’s demands or desires? In other words, how do we get people (individually and on a large scale) activated for something that seems to possess no immediate reward or entertainment nor is usually linked to an immediate crisis or controversy that must be addressed.
Psychologically speaking, lessons of the last half century, and even more recently the tech revolution, indicate that three key factors must be present to create the kind of groundswell that truly changes the course of a community as it does for its citizens.
All initiatives must be 1) attractive, 2) accessible, and 3) unifying. Regarding attractiveness, one of the biggest mistakes of the past few decades when it comes to recommendations around sleep (and diet, exercise, and such) is not the guidelines (gold standards) themselves, but the approach that has been largely used, which is an obligatory one. For example, with exercise recommendations, the overarching focus has been how much (and what type) of exercise individuals need to get per week as well as negative outcomes that can occur when this doesn’t happen. While there has been some conversation around positive benefits, these are largely limited to longer-term advantages (e.g., improved cardiovascular functioning, weight loss), thus not really engaging many people who are simply trying to survive daily demands while also accessing immediate joys and adventure.
To make sleep initiatives attractive, we must consider what individuals most want, especially in the immediate time frame, and how sleep can help provide for this. Maybe it’s feeling less anxious, experiencing joy more regularly, feeling more productive, finding more meaning, or just not always feeling tired around others, thus enjoying these interactions more. Effort must be placed to create slogans, talking points, and initiatives that really tap into “the heart of the matter” and help individuals see sleep “in a different light”, certainly not the boring, uneventful interlude between busy, stressful days in which intermittent happiness and intrigue is (hopefully) found.
Two, programs must be accessible (convenient, and cost-efficient) enough so that no individual, company, or governmental agency feels that they are carrying an unreasonable load considering all the other demands that exist. Accessibility is a huge key in not only initiating change, but also making it sustainable enough that long-term growth and enhancement can occur. Otherwise, as often happens with any well-intentioned initiative, a tremendous amount of effort results in little more than a feel-good, yet unsuccessful attempt at positive change.
Finally, initiatives must be unifying enough to create both a shared excitement and a joint accountability. Consider what occurs with a team when individuals collectively work towards the goal of a championship pursuit, or even just improving upon what has previously existed. A sense of excitement not only becomes contagious, but individuals start to become accountable to each other, which together forms a greater desire to see what capacity is possible beyond what might have been previously believed.
While teams and communities are certainly not synonymous, or even analogous on certain levels, there are numerous historical accounts where people in communities (or countries) of various size and composition came together in ways that were both meaningful and transformative, thus enacting change that impacted many people and countless generations to come. When individual leaders, corporations, non-for-profits, schools, and public authorities are all “speaking the same language” and promoting the same enthusiastic, accessible message, the issue of sleep suddenly becomes less about something I should do but rather about something I can and want to do to help make life more enjoyable for me and others. Ultimately, it’s a global shift from the language of obligation to the language of opportunity that suddenly galvanizes a community around the possibilities that lie in store.
It is here where Evansville is uniquely positioned in size, civic-mindedness, connection, and tradition to make this not just a pollyannish pursuit, but a real possibility. And there’s one more asset that this community has above many others that would further this groundswell: its deep sense of faith and spirituality. The reality is that the science of sleep is simply a timeless reflection of God’s design. Whether it is the amount of sleep that is optimal for different ages, or the type of habits or environment that is conducive (or detrimental) to restorative sleep, or the incredible, mysterious processes that occur during somnolence that sustain us physically, psychologically, and socially as well as provide the framework for our joys and adventures, the simple truth is that this is all of a divine origin. We as human beings or communities do not create or orchestrate sleep, we simply seek to preserve it.
Given this, imagine that places of worship throughout the Evansville area started espousing the gospel of good sleep, as one of the most accessible, healthy ways to increase joy and reduce unnecessary suffering. If you are like me, you’ve never (or almost never) heard a homily, or seen a bulletin announcement, or experienced an engaging mission, about the promises of prioritizing and celebrating God’s design around sleep. But in conjunction with all the other entities, imagine the tremendous solidarity created if our preachers and places of worship embraced this message with the rest of our community.
Ultimately, there is almost nothing more attractive, accessible, and unifying than encouraging good sleep. In a world full of division and controversy, I daresay that the detractors are minimal just as the aspirations are self-evident. Even in certain settings, such as in business, public safety, or in medicine, where getting a good night’s sleep might be considered a challenge in meeting job requirements, no one is saying that we shouldn’t seek out restorative, adequate sleep, but rather we are still trying to find ways given the demands (or pursuits) that exist. Regardless of political persuasion, cultural background, experiential exposure, or philosophical underpinnings, the reality is not only that we can unite around this common goal, but rather why would we not?
Ten to fifteen more minutes a night of sleep is four to seven more hours per month, thus 48-84 more hours a year. An additional 1-2 “workweeks” of sleep per year, when no work is actually being done, is easily on of the most untapped boons for society that exists today. For the roughly 30-40% of adults getting less than seven hours per night, and for the roughly 75-85% of teens getting under eight hours, just imagine the tremendous opportunities that exist for a community like Evansville, if individuals, families, schools, businesses, non-for-profits, places of worship, and city/county officials all embraced and supported a simple, yet groundbreaking idea:
What would 15 more minutes of sleep a night mean to you, your family, and our community?
