ABSTRACT
Sleep is ubiquitous and considered essential to good health. Although the genuine purpose of sleep still evades us, we know that all mammals and animals totally deprived of sleep die within weeks (1). Sleep is also tightly linked to human physiology and disease. Indeed, healthy sleep is as important to overall well-being as regular exercise and a proper diet. Therefore, one wonders why the optimization of sleep has lagged in conventional medicine and why society still de-emphasizes the importance of sleep. Perhaps this stems from the fact that sleep, from a behavioral perspective, appears to be a passive, quiescent state devoid of function and productivity. This is compounded by the societal perception that sleep complaints are more a nuisance than a true medical problem.
