Sleep disorders are a national concern

Experts estimate that sleepy employees cost businesses $70 billion a year in lost productivity, medical bills, and accidents— partially resulting from sleepy construction workers or forklift operators who crash their vehicles into walls, police officers falling asleep while waiting for traffic lights to change, or from salesmen who drop off to sleep in the middle of their pitch to a customer.

In 1987 authorities closed the Peach Bottom Power Station, a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, because controllers were discovered sleeping during their night and weekend shifts. In another instance, an operator at a waste-treatment plant nodded off during his midnight shift and accidently dumped thousands of gallons of dangerous chemicals into a river. Sleepy pilots pose a special risk. The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that pilot fatigue was either the cause or at least a contributing factor in 69 plane accidents resulting in the deaths of 67 people between 1983 and 1986.

Clearly sleep disorders are a national concern.

Generally people refer to sleep disturbances under the collective term "insomnia." As you'll soon see, however, insomnia travels under many names and in many disguises. One purpose of this book is to help you recognize and identify the different types of insomnia and their causes—both physical and emotional—as a first step in achieving a good, night's sleep. You'll discover a number of ways in which you can help yourself toward that goal, and you'll also learn when to turn to professionals for help.

That's the good news about insomnia—that help is available. Although sleep science is a relatively new medical discipline, considerable progress has been made over the past fifteen years in the way physicians diagnose and treat sleep disorders. Doctors are more aware of how their patients' lifestyles, emotions, even their jobs, interact to play significant roles in how well they rest at night. We know much more now about how such factors as exercise, diet, smoking, and intake of alcohol and caffeine affect people's ability to get a good night's sleep. And the exciting new science of chronobiology—how the various systems of the body act over the course of a day or a year—has much to teach us about sleep.

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