Why Sleep Has Become Something to Measure and Buy

In Japan, sleep is beginning to be treated not simply as rest, but as a life skill that should be measured and improved. More than 45,000 applications poured in for an urban event, and with Japan’s average daily sleep time coming in at a relatively short 7 hours and 22 minutes, a growing number of people are accepting lack of sleep as both an everyday inconvenience and a task to be managed.

This trend is changing consumer culture toward reclaiming sleep that had been reduced amid busy lifestyles. Rather than seeking a sleep duration presented as the one correct answer, people are trying to find the state of recovery that suits them personally, while companies are expanding the market by linking these anxieties to products and services.

Expanding From Hospital Testing to At-Home Monitoring

Sleep management is also shifting in healthcare from hospital-centered testing to home-based monitoring systems. In Korea, a demonstration project is underway to validate at-home sleep testing for 300 transportation workers, and this effort was driven in part by Japanese driver data showing that 26.4% may have moderate or more severe sleep apnea.

Major technology companies are moving in the same direction as well. A health app equipped with Apple Intelligence interprets sleep together with heart health and activity information, pulling everyday data into a health assessment framework through indicators such as health age.

Personalized Management Combining Prediction and Intervention

Sleep data is now being used not only for fatigue management but also as material for predicting disease risk. Korean researchers have begun clinical validation of a mobile app that indicates chronic kidney disease risk, analyzing sleep, physical activity, genomic data, and health screening information together, while also applying a federated learning approach to protect personal information.

What this change means is that healthcare is beginning to move away from a model that responds only after symptoms appear. However, many efforts are still in the early research and pilot stage, so their accuracy and long-term effects need further verification. The next key question is whether the technology can lead to actual lifestyle changes and links to treatment.

The Sleep Market Is Spreading Even to the Raw Materials Industry

The expansion of the sleep market is not stopping at devices and apps, but is also extending into regional agriculture and the development of functional materials. In Sejong, a 0.5-hectare pilot cultivation complex is being operated to use the native medicinal plant Sedum aizoon as a sleep health material, building a foundation for raw material supply.

This means that sleep has become an industrial theme connecting medical services, electronic devices, content, and functional ingredients. Going forward, competitiveness is likely to depend less on the efficacy of any single product and more on how reliably data can be accumulated, and how seamlessly testing, advice, treatment, and raw material supply can be connected.