Wake-up call
Insomnia is costing the average U.S. worker 11.3 days, or $2,280, in lost productivity every year, according to a new study. As a nation, the total cost is $63.2 billion. “We were shocked by the enormous impact insomnia has on the average person’s life,” said lead author Ronald Kessler, a psychiatric epidemiologist and professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. “It’s an underappreciated problem. Americans are not missing work because of insomnia. They are still going to their jobs but accomplishing less because they’re tired. In an information-based economy, it’s difficult to find a condition that has a greater effect on productivity.” These findings appear in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep. The results were computed from a national sampling of 7,428 employees, part of the larger American Insomnia Study (AIS), which was led by Kessler and funded by Sanofi-Aventis Groupe. Participants were asked about sleep habits and work...