What troubles me is not the fact more and more people are requiring medication to sleep is the normalization of advertising sleep medication/supplements.
It’s a serious disorder. Taken to extremes, it can kill. It’s not something to be trivially dealt with.
I’m in Europe and I see melatonin gummy bears being advertised on cartoon channels. Straight to kids. Where are the toys commercials? Need to start hooking children to medication as early as possible?
It gets worse, further down that path of advertising meds direct to consumers. Your doctors will stop working with you and prescribing drugs they think you need in favor of waiting for you to tell them what popular drugs you want to try
That doesn’t happen in my country, as real medications are completely prohibited to be advertised; only over the counter and nutritional supplements are allowed. We have a very harsh and punitive supervisor on that front. Fines are high and hurt.
This late laxing on allowing the melatonin gummies and similars airing to children is worrisome but it can be put down at any moment. Nonetheless, it should never had begun.
American here: I don’t have any problems sleeping, nor does my wife typically, and I can’t say that I know of anyone that takes a sleep supplement every single night.
Same here. According to This article which sources a study by National Center for Health Statistics, less than 2% of Americans use a nightly sleep aid.
A different study by the NCHS reported that 81% of Americans reported “never” using a sleep aid.
Thank you for providing a source!
Anxiety, stress, and modern blueish, bright lighting/screens are a huge part of the problem. Humans didn’t evolve to deal with overstimulation in the evening.
I had insomnia and stress issues for years to the point I had a panic attack – I thought I was having a heart attack or stroke. Dealing with the stress and light were major steps towards resolving the problem.
I cut way back on the news and doomscrolling to no more than an hour a day before noon. I set my house lights to dim down with the sun, and no TV, phone, or computer screens for at least an hour before bed. If it’s unavoidable: dimming them and a blue light filter help.
Hi, I take Ambien nightly, and have for over a decade, now you know someone :).
I take meds to help me sleep at night. My crippling ADHD keeps my mind from resting without help. I’m on stimulants, but my last dose is at noon. Any later than that, and they’ll just cancel out my sleeping meds.
I have the opposite issue as I’m unmedicated for my ADHD, I can drink coffee at around noon and it’ll quiet down my brain enough that it can help me sleep
Oh that’s interesting. Coffee doesn’t really wake me up or relax me. I still have like 3 cups a day though lmao
me reading this at 11pm while making mac n cheese
Irrelevant but where’s the scene depicted from? It feels so familiar I’m losing my mind.
Thanks I can’t believe I forgot
Commenting cause its also driving me crazy
Tnx!
Queen’s Gambit tvshow.
Thank you omg
European here, we can’t sleep either.
“Literally everyone”
You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Figuratively everyone.
Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.
Yeah but there has to be some reality to it, sleep for a year makes sense because you’re saying ‘I’m super tired and I could sleep for a real long time’ all of which is true, this is saying ‘a majority of people in place A do this thing that is unknown in place B’ which isn’t even close to an approximation of reality.
Not literally literally, figuratively literally.
I don’t get why it grinds everyone gears. Isn’t it just an hyperbole? (y’know like for the hypersoups ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Is that a LinksTheSun reference
It might’ve been where I got it from :p
It wasn’t conscious but I used to watch what he did awhile back.
I think because it’s a pretty gross mischaracterization of the demographic? Usually hyperbole is used for effect to more emphatically illustrate a generally true or accepted point.
The number of Americans who use nightly sleep aids is extremely low. Like, a vast vast majority of people never take them. I don’t know anyone who regularly takes them, and honestly I don’t know many who take them even occasionally.
So this meme uses hyperbole to drive home the idea that Americans have a pill problem regarding sleep aids and no one in Europe does. I have no idea how the numbers shake out in Europe but I can say in America it is not as characterized. So it’s less hyperbole (exaggeration of a fact) and more like a lie.
Ok so I did a quick search and:
- 2% of americans declare using sleeping aids daily.
- 18% declare using some some
So yeah the amount of people “litteraly using medication to sleep every night” ia quite low. The use amongst the population is still generally high so I wouldn’t directly classify that hyperbole as a lie. (but I’m not claiming I’m right on that it’s a feelings calculation).
I’m also pretty sure these numbers are underreported for example because of the stigma around using “recreational drugs” as an illegal mean to self medicate.
Also it’s nice for you to have nobody (that you know of ofc) struggling to sleep.
Where I’d personally feel more nitpicky about that meme is the opposition with Europe. I don’t think we sleep much better. A lot of people around me (and myself included) heavily rely on sedation in one form or another to have any semblance of sleep. Although there might be some selection bias since alot of folks I know are handicaped in one way or another so we don’t tend to have the best physical and psychic health ^^’
Appreciate you finding numbers when I didn’t go to that effort. It makes me wonder if numbers are pretty similar globally. 2% having chronic insomnia doesn’t sound completely out of line to me.
Hey \o
The planet litterally when halfway around the sun during the time I took to respond to you.
The definition of chronic insomnia is “at least 3 times a week for at least 3 monthes” (simplified but that’s the idea)
So the real number of people with chronic insomnia is at the very least 2% but it’s probably closer to those 18%.
I hope time has been kind to you in those last 6 monthes. I’ve got a new treatment that allows me to have a good night of sleep almost everyday and it’s a godsend ^^
It is hyperbole, but the problem is that it’s using a word that was supposed to specify that something was not hyperbole as hyperbole, rendering it useless.
Except some of the earliest uses of the word “literally” that didn’t pertain to letters and glyps we in the form of hyperbole.
Literal as factual and literal as exaggeration both about the same age and precedent, and have been used long enough that it’s just part of the English language at this point.
May as well complain about how “discreet” and “indiscreet” are opposites, but “flammable” and “inflammable” are the same.https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/wordplay/autoanto.html
English is a language of contradictions and massively confusing syntax. News at 11.
the problem is that it’s using a word that was supposed to specify that something was not hyperbole as hyperbole, rendering it useless.
… Or… Because it’s a word specifically meant to indicate it is not hyperbolic, using it in that way is literally the superlative hyperbole.
At the cost of the word’s intended use, unfortunately. RIP literally. It literally died.
Now you have to hit literally in the chest with an adrenaline shot to bring lividity into its decaying body.
quite literally
actually literally
A good point, I haven’t seen “quite literally” used to mean “figuratively.” Perhaps there’s some usefulness to be had yet.
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rendering it useless
Another example of hyperbole.
Okay, rendering it far less useful.
People, including many famous authors, have been using literally this way for hundreds of years.
Yes, but its use to mean its opposite didn’t become widespread until the past decade or so.
People have been complaining about it longer than a decade, so you’re way off there.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
Tldr: common use in the “figurative” sense for since the 1800s.
Incorrect. People have been using it the way you are complaining about for hundreds of years. It’s a new phenomenon that people complain about it being used the way you disapprove of. I’d attribute the recent complaints to lack of literary exposure and anti intellectualism in recent years.
What bothered me about it was that they’re stating it’s everyone doing these things, but I think it’s probably a small minority.
Someone sourced a couple higher in the comments. Their info showed 2% of the populous doing what “literally everyone” is doing. The other stat they included was 80% of the populous had never used a sleep aid in their life. So the talk of it being hyperbole is even a stretch.
Saying literally everyone in the U.S. is a cigarette smoker would be more accurate. (Not accurate)
Aw see this is the kinda love we need. Thanks Europe! Can you help us? 😭
It’s gonna be OK, friend. It’s gonna be OK.
There, there…
I took a poll of indigenous cultures around the world and judging by my results no, the Europeans are not interested in helping
I found an amazing cure for my insomnia. It’s called ‘being in your late 40s.’
Ironically, I developed insomnia right after turning 40… Went on a 6 straight days of no sleep couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness I’m also laid off…
F
Like seriously my forties have been the worst I’ve ever slept. Thirties definitely my best sleeping decade so far from a restfulness perspective. Glad you’re rocking it though. Gives me hope.
Once I hit 45, I started going to bed at 8.
My forties have brought night sweats. If I don’t set the AC to 63° I wake up just absolutely drenched in sweat, it’s awful.
Please talk of this to your physician, if you are healthy and have night sweats it could hide something bad. Happened recently with a friend. Could be nothing at all but better safe than sorry. Take care ;)
Thanks but I already know what it is - perimenopause!
Yeah, but what about the heartburn?
Losing weight helped me a lot.
Stop eating American food, works 9/10 times.
… are you from one of those cultures that doesn’t use spices?
I’m from one of those cultures that doesn’t stop using spices. A quick reminder that the poison authorized by your FDA as “food safe” doesn’t count as a spice.
instructions unclear, Turkish gyro still gave me heartburn (but it was worth it)
Weed puts me right to sleep, but I can sleep just fine without it
I’d recommend not using it too often for sleep. Weed tends to disrupt REM sleep. Rem is extremely beneficial as it plays a role in memory consolidation, emotional processing, brain development, and dreaming.
But REM sleep gives me night terrors an I wake up screaming and thrashing. I use a glass of whiskey to keep the NT’s away and I realize that isn’t terribly healthy, but it keeps my fiance from being woken up/ bruised
Could be worse. As a kid I had night terrors and sleepwalked. With no memory of it. So I would go to sleep in one place, and wake up somewhere else, drenched in sweat, loaded with adrenaline, screaming and with no idea where I was or what was happening. Just a straight transition from falling asleep to terrified panic in a different room (or once, my car).
Yeah I don’t smoke too often, really just weekends
No way! I’ve been using it daily for years, I haven’t had issues with… What were we talking about again?
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Oh nice. I like Spicy Doritos.
It’s starting in Europe as well unfortunately :/
chemicals are all we are in varying concentrations
Those words don’t make sense in that order Chinabot.
Well, unless you’re trying to sound philosophical, which would make you worse than a bot.
Just missing a comma…
no you just don’t have comprehension skills
said the pasty faced european https://www.google.com/search?q="pasty+faced"+european
Does crying yourself to sleep every night count as “taking something?”
Yes. It’s an endorphin release.
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browsing supplements isle at Target. marketing designer gummies
That’s so much
Ah yes, the placebo section. Like magic, the more it costs, the better it works.
actually like one I’ve tried. bought some caps off amazon based on ingredients.
L-theanine and GABA is good for my anxiety. placebo or not. have to read labels/fine print. They are asking about $20/jar at Target
That’s good, it might contribute to why I feel more mentally balanced when I stick to a green tea and high vegetable diet since that’s apparently a rich source of l-theanine and GABA. It’s hard to separate from the other benefits.
I don’t like our culture of having a magic pill for everything, when there are simpler (less processed, less packaging, much cheaper) things to try first that promote better health overall. But green tea, sweet potatoes and oily fish aren’t sexy marketing propositions that can be marked up x percent.
Ensuring the hooiest of has
Has no one in this thread never considered the root cause with these:
Anxiety. Americans are an anxious society. And that is with good cause, no social safety net, work 2 jobs to get ahead and a mass shooting every goddamn day.
Hey man, an entire society of people in survival mode is how a degree of essentialism is maintained
But what about all of the freedom?!? And bravery!?!
