March 14, 2008.  It is reasonable to set aside one day of the year to celebrate sleep and raise awareness of its disorders. To this effect, the first World Sleep Day will be held on March 14, 2008, under the slogan Sleep well, live fully awake. The event is sponsored by the World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM) and many local groups in different countries throughout the world. The World Sleep Day is intended to be a celebration of sleep and a call to action on many fronts related to sleep that include education, social issues and driving. The events will take place in public settings around the world and online with unveiling of a declaration, presentation of educational materials, and exhibition of videos. A logo, an allegoric film and special background music have been especially produced for this event. Dr. William C. Dement, discoverer of dream activity in REM sleep and father of sleep medicine in the USA, states “March 14, 2008, will be the first world sleep day. This has been organized by colleagues around the planet and hopefully will be an event that is successful and will continue in the foreseeable future. Everyone needs to understand how important sleep is and how sleep is so important for a healthy life."

Sleep is a universal function of the brain. All mammals sleep and virtually all vertebrates and some invertebrates show sleep behaviors. Nobody knows why sleep occurs but all agree that sleep is an essential and unavoidable biological function that is a privilege and should be an individual right for all. Sleep should be celebrated as a pleasurable physiological activity that is restorative, refreshing and energizing. When sleep fails either by excess or defect, many functions trail in a patho- and psycho-physiological decline that is debilitating, incapacitating and organically distressing. One third of adults suffer insomnia, many have sleep apnea, others fall in the grip of shift work circadian dysrhythmia, innumerable people complain of restless legs and an excessive number overuse sleeping pills. This is a representative small part of the approximately 80 sleep-related disorders that have been codified so far. Sleep is present in one way or another in every day of our lives.

The First World Sleep Day is co-chaired by Antonio Culebras, MD, professor of neurology at SUNY, Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and Liborio Parrino, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Parma University, Italy. Committee members are: Richard Allen, Sudansu Chokroverty, Christian Guilleminault, Wayne Hening, Mario Terzano, Robert Thomas, Claudia Trenkwalder, and Allan O’Bryan, WASM Executive Director.

Delegates from many nations around the world have been invited to join the activities on Friday, March 14, 2008, by visiting the special website that has been created at http://www.worldsleepday.org/.

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