Aliiz Koletas
NEW YORK – The word revolution conjures images of wars and fighting…blood, sweat, and tears, but Arianna Huffington, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, is leading the fight for a sleep revolution. She recently authored a book aptly named The Sleep Revolution, pointing out the perils of the sleep deprived culture we are in and the whys and the ways to change it.
She appeared at a book signing event packed with hundreds of people at the luxurious international Greek-owned bedding store Coco-Mat in New York City on April 6.
Before speaking to the crowd, she told The National Herald, “I just love that we’re having this party at a Greek store with Greek music and Greek food.”
She talked about coming from a Greek family that revered sleep, and now she’s trying to bring that message to everyone on a public scale with her new book.
With cameras and cellphones held high, the crowd gathered around to hear why she felt this issue was important enough for her to write at length about it.
She expressed concern about children being misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) when they are really sleep deprived. And that’s not the only age group: she is targeting colleges with hundreds of sleep fairs coming up soon to spread the message of how important it is to sleep more especially in college.
Not to leave the older generation out, she warned that sleep deprivation leads to erectile dysfunction so she jokingly cautioned the crowd to “forget Viagra and get seven to nine hours of sleep!”
Encouraging the crowd to try out the mattresses by jumping on them, Huffington tried to drive home the point of how important it is for everybody to get enough sleep to feel better in life.
She also acknowledged her two daughters Christina and Isabella, who were in attendance that night. Not just family came out to support Huffington; lifestyle queen Martha Stewart was in attendance as well.
Stewart told TNH how wonderful it was to see what her friend was up to, “and she’s up to sleeping! She’s trying to get me to sleep more but I don’t know if I want to!”
While Huffington may still need to convince Stewart of the benefit of sleeping more, she has already convinced Uber to partner up with her to spread the message about drowsy driving. Although drunken driving incidents have been lowered recently, she pointed out that drowsy driving accidents are rising.
She is hoping as well that her sleep revolution campaign will not just start from behind the wheel but will also reach into the corporate world with nap rooms rights alongside boardrooms.
It will be interesting to see if The City That Never Sleeps will read Huffington’s book and take her advice and start a Sleep Revolution become The City That Sleeps Well.
More information on The Sleep Revolution is available at penguinrandomhouse.com.