The great sleep divide

Sleep deficits are robbing poor people and racial minorities of health and earning power.

Read the whole story

 

[cakqe]

What are "Type A professionals"?

 

[Fatesrider]

some white men in the comment section "finally learning" that they are very privileged.

Um... Well, being a white guy who's poor, and averages 5 hours of sleep a night, I think I can safely say this is less about race than it is about poverty and stress.

That's a much NICER thing to say than what I was going to say specifically to you for that bullshit post.

Did you even read the fucking article?

It's not a racial thing at all. The well off of all races sleep better than the poor of all races. The article simply, and correctly, points out that racial minorities in the U.S. tend to have a higher proportion of poor than do whites. But if you put it all together, there are more poor white people than there are poor non-white people. For example, the PROPORTION of black poor is about twice that of poor whites. But Blacks make up 13.4% of the U.S. population, while whites make up 60.3%.

Out of 1000 people, 603 of them will be white, and 134 will be Black. Of those 134, about 25-30% will be poor. That tops out at 40 people. Of the whites, about 10-15% will be poor. That tops out at 90 people, or twice as many whites as Blacks. Scale up to the population of the United States and there are significantly more poor whites than poor Blacks.

So, if this sleep divide issue is racist, and you target RACE to fix this, you ARE being racist, because you then ignore everyone who isn't a racial minority (well, whites won't be a racial majority until 2045 if current trends continue) and differentiate based on the color of their skin instead of what the problem is: The poor face much greater stress and health issues REGARDLESS of race.

This is about wealth and means, or their lack, not race.

 

[khumak50]

As someone who was an insomniac for most of my life until recently, I found basically 2 issues that were the culprit for me.

1. Random scheduling. This is a big one. I used to be on call for my job which meant that in addition to working 9am-5pm, I also worked from whenever the phone rang until I fixed whatever the problem was. Sometimes this meant I would get a call at 2am and work for 18 hours straight and then get another call like that a few hours later. When my schedule looked like that I could only sleep when I was completely exhausted. So I typically would stay up for about 36-48 hours before I could fall asleep. Going to bed before that meant I would just lay there wide awake for several hours and probably still be awake when my alarm went off.


2. Having to be up during times that just don't fit my natural body clock. I'm a night owl. Always have been, probably always will be. I don't get tired til 2am usually. If I have to wake up at 6am, I'm still not going to be tired until 2am so it's pointless to go to bed before that.

What fixed the problem for me was switching to a job where I'm not on call and can work from home so I could adjust my work hours to a regular 9am-5pm schedule. Since I work from home there's zero commute so I can actually sleep until about 8:45am, make my coffee, and be nice and fresh for work at 9am. This also allows me to consistently fall asleep at the same time every night which means I can fall asleep in maybe 30 minutes instead of several hours.

Edit: Forgot this one:

3. Poor quality mattress. I used to have an uncomfortable mattress because I was poor and it was free. Buying a good quality foam mattress makes sleeping a lot easier. I'm not poor anymore and wouldn't have been able to afford the mattress I got when I was.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

.

This is about wealth and means, or their lack, not race.

Actually, controlling for wealth, racial minorities still suffer sleep deprivation compared to their white peers. Racism very much drives a sleep divide even within the same economic classes, independent of the problem that minorities have unequal access to wealth.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... ort=reader

 

[echterbarb]

I think this is all about money, no matter your skin colour: if you have enough money in your bank account you don't have to worry about every little thing the whole night. If you have money you can afford to live in a nice neighbourhood (the article states that).

Several problems separating "money" and "skin color," though. Systemic racism engenders a gap between white and colored populations on that front.
1) Wealth is largely generational, which makes sense: if your parents were well-off, you are more likely to be well-off throughout your life as well. Better opportunities when young, inheritance, networking, less likely to be impoverished by medical emergencies, less stress making ends meet, etc. etc. etc. etc. Think of wealth as partly a relay-race spanning generations and you start to understand why even today, even if we ignore the ongoing racism, minorities are at a disadvantage.
2) Redlining and other racist policies destroyed the generational wealth of minorities. As a result of these and other factors, as The Brookings Institute succinctly put it, "A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. Gaps in wealth between Black and white households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation’s inception. The Black-white wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all its citizens." Emphasis mine.
3) Systemic racism didn't stop when explicit redlining was banned, so even this is not the full extent of policies that create a class division along racial lines.

There are way too many factors going into this to explain in a comment section, even one with as generous a character limit as Ars Technica's. But ascribing this to "money, not race," is basically chucking out huge chunks of reality and the observable dynamics at play.

Please don't pretend your country treats poor white citizens any better.
You even invented terms like "white trash" to degrade them.
Wealth is often inherited, I give you that, but that doesn't invalidate my point:

The problem is not racism, it is a lack of "equality of opportunity". Your poor stay poor and unhealthy because your society does not care about them, not because of their skin colour.

 

[Arc Of History]

So, if this sleep divide issue is racist, and you target RACE to fix this, you ARE being racist

Congrats, I thought Arc Of History and echterbarb had the dumbest posts in this thread, but you just took the cake. You really need talent to post something that idiotic.

Explain please.

 

[MaskDeMasque]

Please don't pretend your country treats poor white citizens any better.

https://www.businessinsider.com/welfare ... ind-2020-8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_in ... ted_States

https://www.ussc.gov/research/research- ... sentencing

If you are white, you are less likely to be poor, you are more likely to be lifted from your economic class are are treated less severely by the legal system.

 

[NinjaNerd56]

Life long ‘short sleeper’ - for decades I was GREAT with 4-5 hours at most a night.

Older now, and find that 6-7 hours is now the requirement.

Wife and I both do 5-10mg of indica gummies and sleep much better.

Tried the melatonin, white noise, etc. - and while helpful on occasion, cannabis is the best.

 

[greybeardengineer]

Perhaps it is more an issue that some folks can't sleep if there is anyone out there that doesn't agree with their ideology. Or worse don't even give a shit even to enough to engage in disagreement. Or gasp, ignoring such mental wank bullshit and prefer having a bit fun where they can get it in an imperfect world (as it always will be).

 

[NicoleC]

If genetic factors are irrelevant, why does the article kerps talking about skin color?

Because race is a social construct, not a genetic one. Most African Americans, for example, have large amounts of European genetic history as well as African, often with good doses of American Aboriginal as well.

The division of "race" is one of arbitrary skin color and the cultural identity that follows that. Skin color is a terrible proxy for genetic history.

 

[SkepticalOptimist]

3 key take-always:

1) statistical correlation exists between health risk and various socio-economic indicators (including sleep)

2) black population mostly falls in ‘poor’ side of indicators

3) as a solution, a massive intervention to alter lifestyle behavior, rather than leaving it to individual choice, is recommended

Some thoughts:

- I’m surprised in Curtis et.al. (linked PNAS paper) suggests eliminating racial difference as a priority when their own analysis shows race sensitivity factor is negligible when all lifestyle factors are included in the fit. Race sensitivity factor is only significant when fitting is done only with demographic factors (even then, 95% confidence interval spans from 0 to 2x sensitivity value - Table 3). You wouldn’t get away with this kind of analysis in product engineering where money is on the line, so shame on the Auburn research team.

- How would we even go about implementing population-level intervention? The foundational myth of this country is individualism and personal choice (and consequences). What is the strategy to change people’s mind en masse? (I hope it is not passing a legislation based on arguing a principle, then forcing it on dissenting majority.) How do you deal with those who would still prefer personal choice (and capable of making responsible choices)? I really find recommendation unrealistic.

 

[khumak50]

I think this is all about money, no matter your skin colour: if you have enough money in your bank account you don't have to worry about every little thing the whole night. If you have money you can afford to live in a nice neighbourhood (the article states that).

Several problems separating "money" and "skin color," though. Systemic racism engenders a gap between white and colored populations on that front.
1) Wealth is largely generational, which makes sense: if your parents were well-off, you are more likely to be well-off throughout your life as well. Better opportunities when young, inheritance, networking, less likely to be impoverished by medical emergencies, less stress making ends meet, etc. etc. etc. etc. Think of wealth as partly a relay-race spanning generations and you start to understand why even today, even if we ignore the ongoing racism, minorities are at a disadvantage.
2) Redlining and other racist policies destroyed the generational wealth of minorities. As a result of these and other factors, as The Brookings Institute succinctly put it, "A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. Gaps in wealth between Black and white households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation’s inception. The Black-white wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all its citizens." Emphasis mine.
3) Systemic racism didn't stop when explicit redlining was banned, so even this is not the full extent of policies that create a class division along racial lines.

There are way too many factors going into this to explain in a comment section, even one with as generous a character limit as Ars Technica's. But ascribing this to "money, not race," is basically chucking out huge chunks of reality and the observable dynamics at play.

Other than the redlining part, most of this is purely a family wealth based head start that race has nothing to do with. I grew up in a middle class family so I lived in a safe, middle class neighborhood and thus went to a reasonably well funded school. Because of the way schools are funded (generally via property taxes), the quality of school you go to mostly depends on how much money your parents have. So poor white kids are at just as much of a disadvantage as poor black kids in that regard.

Housing policies like redlining could certainly impact real estate based wealth, but there are plenty of other investment options that are immune to that, like the stock market. My stock portfolio dwarfs the value of my condo, and if I had a choice in the matter I would much rather the value of my condo went down, not up (for property tax purposes).

I would dispute that wealth is "largely generational" though. Most households in the US don't have enough total wealth to pass on to their kids to make that much difference even if they did it, and it tends to come later in life anyway. In my case I did inherit $10,000 but I was already a multi millionaire before that happened and I started from a significantly negative net worth when I dropped out of college. Family connections, networking, inheritance, etc had nothing to do with my success. I started from the bottom, worked long hours, trained myself, and worked my way up starting from a job that had zero qualifications (call center).

There are exceptions for the dynastic families with so much money that their kids start off in life with millions but that's a very small slice of the population and you really can't hold that against the typical middle class (or lower) family.

 

[PeterWimsey]

some white men in the comment section "finally learning" that they are very privileged.

I'm not familiar with the whole privilege discussion in the US, but what privilege are you talking about? Are cops raiding your house if you are black and had more than 5h of sleep?

I think this is all about money, no matter your skin colour: if you have enough money in your bank account you don't have to worry about every little thing the whole night. If you have money you can afford to live in a nice neighbourhood (the article states that).

Maybe your problem is not "white privilege" or racist caucasians, but just an absoluteley run down health and social system, as well as horrible environmental laws and abysmal school system.

I will probably get a lot of flak for this post, but it is obviously easier to pin all your problems on a single gender of a specific race, than actually doing something. And the worst about this BS? Your hatred is seeping into other countries, like mine, and turns people against each other.

"Maybe your problem is not "white privilege" or racist caucasians, but just an absoluteley run down health and social system, as well as horrible environmental laws and abysmal school system."

Because sleep deprivation isn't a problem in your country? You have studies showing that this is the case?

Of course not; it's typical arrogance. You read about a problem first reported in the US, and you assume that the problem doesn't exist in your country.

But of course you have no idea, and no reason to believe that that's the case.

"as well as horrible environmental laws and abysmal school system."

Air and water in the US are cleaner than they are in Europe, and regulations are stricter. Foodborne illness is also more prevalent in Europe than in the US. Remember the VW Diesel scandal? Not the cheating part; the part where the VW was violating the stricter US NOx emission requirements?

The US *is* less concerned with CO2 than most of Europe, and than it should be...but that's only a tiny part of "environmental laws".

"and abysmal school system."

Yeah, whatever.

If your school had been less abysmal, maybe you would have learned the ability to focus on what the article is actually about, and realized the idiocy of using it as a jumping off point to spread your own ignorant conclusions.

 

[Silh]

Resident dentist lurker chiming in...

As someone with a particular interest in sleep issues, having become increasingly aware of its presence in my patients over the years, reading this article's slant on the issue is... interesting.

There is no doubt that inequalities as mentioned will exacerbate things like this, whether it be sleep, or oral health and cavities (which in general, we do see a correlation with socioeconomic status), or other health problems as well. And working to eliminate these inequalities is definitely something that needs to be done.

That said, framing this problem as if it is predominately a problem of the underprivileged (in, I presume, an effort to encourage further action in the area) does a disservice to how widespread and ubiquitous the problem is in everybody. It's like a comment someone made offhand once, that to deal with the problem of people getting cavities, we need to eliminate poverty. Yeah, eliminating poverty would be *great*, but given that we see cavities *everywhere* regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic status, eliminating the skew in a particular direction is not going to eliminate the problem.

Likewise with sleep. And unlike decay on teeth, its presence and health effects are not immediately obvious, and we are finding that its effects are more widespread and subtle as the research on it continues. It's also easier to get away with, and while one might not function as well on less sleep, but one can still function for the most part (depending on amount of deprivation), and then there's also the very common response of ameliorating the immediate side effects with caffeine. The long-term effects of it are a different story, and much of it seems to tie back into inflammatory diseases in general, which include things like diabetes and heart disease, nevermind any longer-term mental effects, which are not really well studied at this point.

So I'm going to leave off with an encouragement to the reader to definitely be (more) aware of sleep issues in themselves. Inasmuch as eliminating socioeconomic, ethnic, and other such inequalities will help reduce the prevalence of sleep problems in general, along with other associated health issues as well, these are problems we see in *everybody*. Sleep problems, cavities, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and just about every other thing you can think of, are not solely the domain of the rich or poor (even if there is a skew in one direction).

Take care of your health, it's a precious thing.

 

[echterbarb]

, but just an absoluteley run down health and social system, as well as horrible environmental laws and abysmal school system.

All of which disproportionally detriment minorities and black people. You know, the point of the fkn article.

Which you would have realized if you had bothered to think before typing.

Even the article itself misses the point! People in your country are suffering and they are not suffering because of some hidden or blatant racism, but because you don't care about the poor!

You could do something positive and have a discussion about how to treat those who need support and give them a fair chance in live. But no, your whole leftist elite chose to make it all about racism and virtue signaling and thereby digging the trenches between people even deeper.

You do not want to tackle the difficult and hard problems, you want a scapegoat, an easy way out. If you get your way and eradicated all that racism, that you claim to see. What have you won? If you could ever be successful: You have distributed all that misery more equally . . . whoop-de-doo what a goal, what an achievement.

 

[Felix Aurelius]

It's interesting that there's a class divide on sleep, but it makes sense. Having a tougher life means more stress, more pain, worse food (more likely to be obese), and other things that have knock on effects with all facets of life.

One thing that I think we need to do as a society is stop acting like waking up at 5AM (or whatever early time) is a badge of honor, and move the expected work-start time up to 9 or 10. Most jobs wouldn't be impacted by losing the hour, and people are just as productive, if not more, with shorter days and better sleep.

We treat needing sleep as a weakness and that's really got to change.

As you call for others to stop forcing early-hours on you, please don't try to force late-hours on me. I happen to like getting up between 5:00 and 6:00 and start my day early. I like getting into work early, and I like getting out correspondingly early. Luckily my employer is quite flexible as to exactly when we start and stop work, and in my job there's no reason why that can't be.

I also like to go to bed correspondingly early, and am not particularly fond of others making noise at night. When I get up early I make a point to not start mowing the lawn or other noisy things right away - it goes both ways.

I guess a better way to put it is to provide more flexibility. I totally understand that people have different "wakeful" hours where they do their best and are most comfortable; we need to be able to accomidate everyone.

 

[MaskDeMasque]

, but just an absoluteley run down health and social system, as well as horrible environmental laws and abysmal school system.

All of which disproportionally detriment minorities and black people. You know, the point of the fkn article.

Which you would have realized if you had bothered to think before typing.

Even the article itself misses the point! People in your country are suffering and they are not suffering because of some hidden or blatant racism, but because you don't care about the poor!

You could do something positive and have a discussion about how to treat those who need support and give them a fair chance in live. But no, your whole leftist elite chose to make it all about racism and virtue signaling and thereby digging the trenches between people even deeper.

You do not want to tackle the difficult and hard problems, you want a scapegoat, an easy way out. If you get your way and eradicated all that racism, that you claim to see. What have you won? If you could ever be successful: You have distributed all that misery more equally . . . whoop-de-doo what a goal, what an achievement.

Both in my country and the US there is a wide overlap between those who care about race issues and poverty ,i.e. those advocating for things like police reform and anti-discrimination laws are also those advocating for better schooling, housing and health care.

So what you just posted is just massively idiotic.

But be my guest, show me a mainstream center-left/left political party that has ever said BOTH "racisms is bad" and "let's cut healthcare benefits for the poor".

 

[Bernardo Verda]

Life long ‘short sleeper’ - for decades I was GREAT with 4-5 hours at most a night.

Older now, and find that 6-7 hours is now the requirement.

Wife and I both do 5-10mg of indica gummies and sleep much better.

Tried the melatonin, white noise, etc. - and while helpful on occasion, cannabis is the best.

I find melatonin is good for setting my biological clock, but doesn't actually improve the quality of my sleep (plus, too much leaves me groggy in the morning).

I personally find L-theanine to be very effective. It doesn't directly affect how long I sleep, but can really improve the quality of my sleep -- I sleep about the same length of time, but am more refreshed, focused and mentally alert when I wake up. And unlike cannabis, I can carry it through customs and security without concern.

 

[MaskDeMasque]

I would dispute that wealth is "largely generational" though. Most households in the US don't have enough total wealth to pass on to their kids to make that much difference even if they did it, and it tends to come later in life anyway. In my case I did inherit $10,000 but I was already a multi millionaire before that happened and I started from a significantly negative net worth when I dropped out of college. Family connections, networking, inheritance, etc had nothing to do with my success. I started from the bottom, worked long hours, trained myself, and worked my way up starting from a job that had zero qualifications (call center).

Now this is quality trolling.

 

[PeterWimsey]

I admit I’m a little confused. At points the article suggests that racial minorities are inherently likely to sleep less for genetic factors, but then proposes social reasons that would drive them to sleep less - even hand-waving away similarly situated blacks and whites with John Henry, while declining to explain the why of the impact on Hispanics or Chinese and fully neglecting to mention if other racial minorities have similar issues (also intriguing is that they broke up the Asians enough to include Chinese).

The article feels like it wants me to come away believing the sleep issue is a racial justice problem and so skewed the analysis to make its case. There is a reason I read Ars and not Fox or MSNBC. The staff need their weekends too and I suppose Conde wants their clicks and ad dollars, but at least print something that doesn’t read like misleading journalism.

Similarly, the article talks about differences between "rich" and "poor", but its examples are actually between "poor" and "middle class (and up)".

Part of the problem, I think, is that the story is based on several unrelated sleep articles, and is conflating them as if they were part of the same study and thus comparable. Rather than what they actually are, which are isolated stories showing part of the elephant.

For example, one article showed that poor people got less sleep than the non-poor. Another article showed that Chinese Americans get less sleep than Whites. But Asian-Americans (although I don't know about Chinese-Americans specifically) have a higher median income than White Americans.

 

[Totally Radical Liberal]

It used to be Ars was about technology and you could avoid mainstream political and social drama here. I have no beef with the article, social justice, etc. I’d just rather not read about it on Ars Technica.

This is science. It's data concerning major trends in the country, analyses of that data, and suggested actions to correct for major deficiencies. Science. That's what Ars has always done. And population science data has always involved race because it's always been an important factor in outcomes.

What's changed is that now suddenly you see the world in terms of culture war and wokeness and you get offended easily if racial or gender terms appear in legitimate science. You are the one that changed. You're the problem. It's pathetic and disheartening how much pushback there is even among readers who should be more scientifically inclined. Please attempt some introspection.

 

[Oldmanalex]

It used to be Ars was about technology and you could avoid mainstream political and social drama here. I have no beef with the article, social justice, etc. I’d just rather not read about it on Ars Technica.

Ars does both technology and science. This article is a science article. You may not like the conclusions drawn, and the data presented may make you feel uncomfortable. However, it does point to some possible ways of mitigating the poorer health of minorities, without tackling the elephants in the room.

 

[TurboPascal]

I do not understand the part about having access to "green space" as it relates to having good sleep.

This article seems to double down on race but I am wondering if it is purely a poor vs not poor problem.

I have to believe if the "worries" discussed are not the same for all poor so it would not matter what your race happens to be if you are poor you have concerns that prevent you from sleeping well.

I feel the focus is too much on race and that it should be on poverty in general.

Does not matter what race you are if you are worried about how you are going to pay for rent or your next meal or whatever that is going to cause you to lose sleep.

Does not matter what race you are, there are massive food deserts in the cities and rural majority-white neighborhoods and bad nutrition is bad nutrition regardless of your race.

Regarding stress, they are not wrong. Every time I go on vacation I know I come home and I am 5lbs lighter according to the scale at my home because I disconnect from all the work and life issues for a week or more. I sometimes feel like we need a national vacation week.

I also feel that social media in general causes a lot of unnecessary stress and less time on social media would help everyone.d


I do not dispute the findings but I believe the problem is more related to poverty than race.

 

[Deleted member 1]

I think very many of us - regardless of race - have gotten even more sleep deprived because of our phones, tablets, eReaders...

 

[SRSegall]

Seriously, "sleep" is now racist too??? This $h!t is getting ridiculous....

What's racist is the constant "white man this-and-that" like punctuation in every sentence.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

This article seems to double down on race but I am wondering if it is purely a poor vs not poor problem.

It's not.

And to be honest, I'm having a hard time understanding why people try to frame it that way. At rock bottom here's one aspect that's easy to understand: If you experience racism, you will lose sleep over it. Someone being treated unfairly will not sleep as well as someone who feels they are being dealt with as well as everybody else. Regardless of whether you're well-off or not even scraping by, this much is absolutely true.

That's a basic, ground-level truth that anybody SHOULD be able to acknowledge. So anybody who can't start there is not going to be engaging in a productive conversation, full stop.


To those saying "This isn't just a race problem, it's widespread!" That's true but not fully. The patterns repeatedly surface no matter how you slice the data: ethnic minorities suffer sleep issues at higher rates than whites in the US. Even when you control for economic factors.

https://blackhealthmatters.com/sleep-disorders/racism-and-sleep-disorders/

Across races, ethnicities and genders, sleeping difficulties are a major issue in the United States. An estimated 30 percent of adults suffer from insomnia, with an even higher percentage reporting they get less than seven hours per night.

Researchers who have started to dig deeper into the data, however, have found that, although sleeping problems can affect people of all races, there are strong indications they have a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities.

[...]Researchers suggest a number of potential causes of the higher rates of sleeping difficulties for people of color. A common theme: higher levels of physical and emotional stress.

Stress can induce an “on alert” state, known as hyperarousal, that has been found to be a key component of insomnia.

Other contributors to sleep-related health disparities include:

• Shift Work: People of color are more likely to work night shifts or irregular or extra hours that can throw off their sleep schedule and their ability to sync their circadian rhythm with the local day-night cycle.
• Occupational Hazards: Many people of color report job stress from discrimination in the workplace. In addition, it’s more common for people of color to work in jobs with greater safety risks that can create stress or occupational exposures to allergens or irritants that may increase their susceptibility to sleep apnea.
• Racial Discrimination: The issue of police brutality is only one aspect of racial discrimination that can have far-reaching effects on a person’s health. Fear, anger and sadness related to racial discrimination are major stressors for many people of color, and studies have found an association between perceived discrimination and lack of sleep.
• Financial Stress: A higher percentage of racial and ethnic minorities face unemployment and poverty, both of which can create financial pressure and significant daily stress.
• Environment: Neighborhoods with a higher percentage of racial and ethnic minorities often confront higher levels of pollution, noise, allergens and other potential stressors and contributors to poor sleep and sleep apnea.
• Acculturation: For minority groups, especially those made up of significant immigrant communities, the process of interacting with dominant culture in America can be a source of tremendous stress and anxiety that may influence sleep quality.
• Unequal Access to Quality Medical Care: Disparities in access to care have a broad effect on health outcomes for minority groups. Conditions like sleep apnea may be less likely to be diagnosed or treated, or people may be less likely to discuss sleeping problems with their physician.

• • 
    
    Because living through racism fucking sucks in so many ways, many of which are not conducive to getting a full night's rest. Only some of these are due to socioeconomic standing; other are simply a natural result of being subjected to racist behavior or racist policies. Economics alone cannot explain these patterns.
    
    There is no reason this should be controversial. Ask yourself why so many people are reacting as if acknowledging these sets of facts gets knees jerking.
    
    

    I have to believe if the "worries" discussed are not the same for all poor so it would not matter what your race happens to be if you are poor you have concerns that prevent you from sleeping well.

    You're wrong for the same reason that workndude on page 1 is wrong. All else being equal, being poor black and being poor white are inherently NOT equal, and being poor black is more stressful. Because society is rife with racism and discrimination in its institutions and everyday human interactions, people who are subject of racial discrimination will almost always have it worse than otherwise similar people who are not.
    
    
    

    Does not matter what race you are if you are worried about how you are going to pay for rent or your next meal or whatever that is going to cause you to lose sleep.

    It does if, on top of all that, you also experience racial discrimination retarding your efforts to climb out of that predicament. Not hard to understand.
    
    

    Does not matter what race you are, there are massive food deserts in the cities and rural majority-white neighborhoods and bad nutrition is bad nutrition regardless of your race.

    And those burdens, for reasons both historical AND current, fall disproportionately on people of color BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE. Even when minority communities attempt to draw attention to their plight, they are less likely to succeed because society is still racist and will discriminate against them rather than implement a solution.
    
    

    Regarding stress, they are not wrong. Every time I go on vacation I know I come home and I am 5lbs lighter according to the scale at my home because I disconnect from all the work and life issues for a week or more. I sometimes feel like we need a national vacation week.

    Experiencing racism causes more stress on top of everything else, so a white person literally has fewer worries than a black peer. This is exactly what "white privilege" means. The privilege is not that you are automatically richer than any POC, it means that you don't face discrimination like your otherwise-equivalent POC peer. It is one of life's hardships you DON'T have to constantly face on top of all of life's other hardships.

 

[Stochastic]

I'll echo what a load of other commenters have already said: are these racial disparities still present after SES and zip codes are statistically accounted for? I'll grant that there could be an independent effect of racism on sleep quality, but I would be very, very surprised if it was anywhere near the magnitude of effect caused by poverty and living in a crappy neighborhood/apartment.

It seems to me that the proposed interventions--addressing poverty, improving building codes, starting school later, etc--would benefit all people regardless of their racial identity.

I'm also surprised there was no discussion of commute times. Poor people often can't afford to live close to their jobs, and they may rely on underfunded public transit, so they spend a lot more time commuting to and from work. The longer your commute, the earlier you have to wake up to make it to work on time. I suspect that improving public transit and densifying cities are among the most effective things we could do as a society to increase average sleep duration. Of course, that is expensive and requires political will, so it probably won't happen anytime soon.

 

[irnoob]

Poor people have to work longer hours to make ends meet, which means they have less time for sleep. To fix this we need to restore the income tax rates we had in the 1950s, and heavily investigate and prosecute people offshoring their earnings. Additionally, caps on non-citizens owning residential property would help slow the meteoric rise of housing costs.

 

[GreenEggsAndCrack]

Sleep apnea is not a fat people problem.
Losing weight rarely helps with apnea. With some people, it worsens the problem.

Not all sleep apnea is the same. Very broadly speaking, there's obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea.

And most, by far, sleep apnea in the USA is obstructive sleep apnea, and it is absolutely a "fat people problem" ...

STOP BANG is a screening mnemonic for OSA. You can look it up if you like, but the B is for BMI and the N is for neck circumference. I'm not writing anything controversial here.

We're a fat country and it has consequences.

 

[Glaciered Fire]

shift workers?
if you do 12 hour swing shifts then you know what a crock it is when people whine about getting one less hour of sleep

 

[Ephesos]

This article seems to double down on race but I am wondering if it is purely a poor vs not poor problem.

It's not.

And to be honest, I'm having a hard time understanding why people try to frame it that way.

The data says that poor people generally sleep less than wealthy people.

If racism was magically solved tomorrow you would just have an equal percentage of whites, blacks, asians, etc in the US that are poor. Those poor will continue sleeping worse than those non poor.

The solution to the sleep problem seems to be reducing poverty across all skin tones. The way to do that is improve education and job access - which incidentally should also improve the racial issue.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

This article seems to double down on race but I am wondering if it is purely a poor vs not poor problem.

It's not.

And to be honest, I'm having a hard time understanding why people try to frame it that way.

The data says that poor people generally sleep less than wealthy people.

The data also say that within each slice, minorities sleep less well than whites. That's why it's NOT "purely a poor vs. not poor problem."

The solution to the sleep problem seems to be reducing poverty across all skin tones.

That's obviously necessary, however not all boats are equally low at any given tide. This problem ALSO needs to be addressed.

 

[MaskDeMasque]

This article seems to double down on race but I am wondering if it is purely a poor vs not poor problem.

It's not.

And to be honest, I'm having a hard time understanding why people try to frame it that way.

The data says that poor people generally sleep less than wealthy people.

If racism was magically solved tomorrow you would just have an equal percentage of whites, blacks, asians, etc in the US that are poor. Those poor will continue sleeping worse than those non poor.

The solution to the sleep problem seems to be reducing poverty across all skin tones. The way to do that is improve education and job access - which incidentally should also improve the racial issue.

If poverty was solved magically tomorrow, you'd still have widespread racism, i.e. the majority would force the minorities back to poverty over time.

You need to solve both, handwaving racism out of the discussion is both intellectually dishonest and factually wrong.

People like you seem to believe that when we point out systemic racism and its consequences somehow we are saying "but let's NOT solve anything else".

Which is not only massively idiotic, but also contradicts observable reality: the same political parties that push for racial equality are often the ones that push for infrastructure, housing, public education and public health care.

Funnily enough, those that handwave racism out of the discussion are also those who let public services rot and destroy public safety nets, but none of you seem to complain about that.

 

[benjianth]

It used to be Ars was about technology and you could avoid mainstream political and social drama here. I have no beef with the article, social justice, etc. I’d just rather not read about it on Ars Technica.

Why? Does it make you uncomfortable? I spent a weekend in a cold room, naked, in jail, because of mental health issues that Texas is not equipped to deal with.

I just don’t give a hoot anymore, some of us have real problems. I recently worked in New Mexico and now I personally know the meaning of “food dessert”.

I also got shot with a beanbag shotgun and I honestly don’t know why. I was in a 1 person cell. I think they just wanted an excuse to hurt someone.

But yea let’s not read about social issues in Ars. Just go to Gizmodo or something. I’m sure People magazine has a section on technology or something.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

My work changed from 5-day, 8-hour schedule from 2pm-10pm for the late shift to a 4-day 10-hour schedule 4pm-2am, which is now indefinitely in 5-day overtime. "Because it will improve your work-life balance."

 

[Deleted member 388703]

It used to be Ars was about technology and you could avoid mainstream political and social drama here. I have no beef with the article, social justice, etc. I’d just rather not read about it on Ars Technica.

Hopefully ome day you'll learn that politics has made even basic science political, therefore your complaint is useless.