Mediaplanet What contributed to you becoming an advocate for getting more sleep?

Arianna Huffington: It started with my own painful wakeup call. On the morning of April 6, 2007, I was lying on the floor of my home office in a pool of blood. On my way down, my head had hit the corner of my desk, cutting my eye and breaking my cheekbone. I had collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep. In the wake of my collapse, I found myself going from doctor to doctor, from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion. There wasn’t, but doctors’ waiting rooms, it turns out, were good places for me to ask myself a lot of questions about the kind of life I was living.

I wrote The Sleep Revolution to examine this ancient, essential, and mysterious phenomenon from all angles, and to explore the ways we can use sleep to help regain control over our out-of-kilter lives. The goal of the book is to move us from awareness to action.

I wrote about my wakeup call in my last book, Thrive. As I went around the world talking about the book I found the subject people wanted to discuss most — by far — was sleep: how difficult it is to get enough, how there are simply not enough hours in the day, how tough it is to wind down, how hard it is to fall asleep and stay asleep — even when we set aside enough time. And, since my own transformation into a sleep evangelist, everywhere I go someone will pull me aside and, often in hushed and conspiratorial tones, confess, “I’m just not getting enough sleep”, or “I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t tired.” By the end of an evening, no matter where I am in the world or what the theme of the event is, I’ll have had that same conversation with any number of people in the room. What everyone wants to know is, “What should I do to get more and better sleep?” So, I decided I wanted to take a more complete look at the subject. It’s clear that if we’re going to truly thrive we must begin with sleep.

MP Tell us more about your book The Sleep Revolution. What can people learn from picking up a copy?

AH: Sleep is one of humanity’s great unifiers. It binds us to one another, to our ancestors, to our past, and to the future. Though sleep has been a constant throughout human history, our relationship to it, and our understanding of its vital benefits, has gone through dramatic ups and downs. Right now that relationship is in crisis.

I’m a better, less reactive, more joyful, more intuitive, and more grateful version of myself. I’m also better able to recognize red flags and rebound from setbacks. It’s like being dialed into a different channel that has less static.

I wrote The Sleep Revolution to examine this ancient, essential, and mysterious phenomenon from all angles, and to explore the ways we can use sleep to help regain control over our out-of-kilter lives. The goal of the book is to move us from awareness to action.

MP What are three tips you think are most important for getting more sleep?

AH: Don’t charge your phone next to your bed. Even better — gently escort all devices completely out of your bedroom. No caffeine after 2 p.m. Create a ritual around your transition to sleep. It will be different for each one of us, but for me it includes a hot bath with Epsom salts, some light stretching, deep breathing or meditation to help ease my body and mind into sleep.

MP In what ways in your life have you noticed a difference from making sleep your number one priority?

AH: The fully-rested me is a million times better than the sleep-deprived me. Instead of waking up to the sense that I have to trudge through activities, I now wake up feeling joyful about the day’s possibilities. And, I experience an incredible clarity. I’m a better, less reactive, more joyful, more intuitive, and more grateful version of myself. I’m also better able to recognize red flags and rebound from setbacks. It’s like being dialed into a different channel that has less static.

MP What suggestions can you give to those who live extremely busy lives such as yourself who are trying to get more sleep but are struggling to find time?

AH: Our sense of being indispensable is central to the sleep crisis we’re facing — so we need to dispense with that as soon as possible! When I had my painful wakeup call, I’d just returned home after taking my daughter Christina, then a junior in high school, on a tour of prospective colleges. The ground rules we’d agreed on — or, more accurately, that my daughter demanded — were that during the days I would not be on my BlackBerry. But, that didn’t mean I would stop working (sacrilege!). So each night we would eat dinner late and get back to the hotel exhausted. Then, in some sort of role reversal, Christina would do the responsible thing and go to sleep while I acted the part of the sneaky teenager and stayed up late. After she had fallen asleep, I’d fire up the computers and the BlackBerrys, responding to all the urgent emails and generally attempting to squeeze a full day’s work into what should have been my sleep time. This process would go on until about 3 a.m., when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. After three or four hours of sleep, I’d be back up for the day shift. Work, after all, was much more important than sleep, at least to my 2007 self. Because, hey, I’m running a start-up — one that’s got my name on it. Clearly I’m indispensable, so I must work all night, responding to a hundred emails and then writing a long blog post, while being the perfect mother during the day. This way of working and living seemed to serve me well — until it didn’t.

The busier we are, the more important it is we make a point to disconnect from our devices, for the sake of our sleep and our overall well-being. For example, I treat my transition to sleep as a sacrosanct ritual. I have a specific time at night when I regularly turn off my devices — and gently escort them out of my bedroom . We also need recharging times during the day, whether it’s simply a short break for a walk or a few minutes of meditation so that we don’t let stress build up and make it harder for us to slow down our minds.