The National Sleep Foundation, an AgeTech Collaborative™ enterprise participant, is dedicated to improving health and well-being through sleep education and advocacy. Founded in 1990, the organization provides educational content online, through digital and social media channels and across broadcast media. Its guidelines, recommendations and branded sleep health content are a primary source used by some of the biggest brands in healthcare communications and government.
We spoke with John Lopos, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation, who discussed the fundamental importance of sleep, the National Sleep Foundation’s drive to democratize sleep health, and why we should not accept the notion that poor quality sleep is “ok” as we age.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What is the National Sleep Foundation all about?
Our mission is to help people understand sleep is critical for health and well-being, and we’ve been serving the public for more than 35 years. We are active advocates in the sleep health space; we do research and promote fundamental sleep health principles; and we educate the public about things like the science behind sleep, the natural processes of sleep and the importance of the environment for sleep health. We also focus on how technology and innovation can help people with their sleep health. What we say is, “Our promise to the public is to help anyone and everyone be their Best Slept Self®.”
How is the National Sleep Foundation different from other sleep-focused organizations?
NSF is a population health organization with a view beyond specific professional or interest groups, so we occupy a unique position in the marketplace. Our constituency is the public at large: When we approach the topic of sleep health and safety, we’re thinking across the lifespan, from children to older adults, and even how sleep health can be a family goal. We’re thinking about how we can educate everyone to help them get enough of the quality sleep they need to benefit them in their day-to-day life.
We conduct sleep health research across the year, including with our Sleep in America® Poll that’s been in place for almost 35 years. Our content helps the public understand more about healthy sleep, we give guidelines and best practice recommendations, and also are there when the public wants to understand more about conditions like sleep disorders. That said, we are not a membership organization for clinicians or researchers such as our colleagues at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine, or Sleep Research Society, though we use our voice to highlight for the public that these are expert resources for sleep disorders medicine and new advances in sleep science. We’re also not a patient advocacy group per se, in the sense of organizations established to support communities of people living with sleep disorders, like narcolepsy, for example.
Still, we’re going to help the public learn more about these disorders and dedicated groups because they can be incredibly important for people living with these conditions. We’re the only organization that does what we do the way we do it, day after day and night after night.
How do you get the word out about sleep health and its importance?
We’re reaching people where they already are. So first, we work to engage with the right content platforms and organizations to help deliver our educational content, whether that’s findings from our research or the sleep health principles that we teach. Second is through the media, because they appreciate the value of NSF. Globally, on any given day, the National Sleep Foundation has multiple pickups in the media, which might talk about anything from our sleep health guidelines to positions we’ve taken on certain topics.
Third, chances are good that if you see a recommendation about sleep health from a third-party organization, we’re behind it in some way. When some of the biggest names in health talk about sleep, our work is often in the background, because we’ve been doing this with the public in mind for 35 years.
What was the catalyst for starting the National Sleep Foundation?
We know sleep is a fundamental process that’s critical to our health and well-being, and one that is hard-wired to many of our public health and medical priorities. So, it’s ironic we could say the field is still in its “adolescence” compared to other health and medical specialty areas for our hearts, lungs, brains, GI, cancer, and more. It was only in the 1950s and 60s that some of the most interesting breakthroughs in sleep were happening, such as the discovery of REM sleep and the formal recognition of sleep apnea.
Then, 35 years ago, a group of luminaries in this comparatively young field — sleep experts, sleep clinicians and sleep researchers — came together, put a stake in the ground, and said, “This is an issue that we really need to develop further and elevate in the public interest.” They worked collaboratively with peers in the field and even clinical organizations like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to get National Sleep Foundation off the ground. Now, we have a distinct mission and are the most established independent resource solely dedicated to public sleep health and well-being.
What inspired you to become part of the AgeTech Collaborative ecosystem?
We’re sleep health advocates, and we want to help everyone understand that sleep plays a huge role in the way that people age — including their health, their productivity and their engagement. The benefits of healthy sleep are inseparable from what we’re all working to achieve with healthy aging, whether it’s for brain health, safety or a host of other things.
This dovetails with why we became part of the Collaborative. We know that some organizations in the Collaborative ecosystem are developing products or services directly related to sleep, and others have sleep somehow worked into their platforms in other ways. We’re here to help them understand the foundational importance of sleep and to say, “We’re a resource for you, now let’s make something happen for sleep and healthy aging.”
How does sleep health, or the lack of it, affect older adults in particular?
The healthy sleep behaviors and focus areas we recommend for people who are 55 and older are not very different from what we recommend to younger people. For good sleep health, during the day we all need sunlight in the morning, regular exercise, and even consistent meal times. At night, we know there are substances to avoid like nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol before sleep. Plus, we all benefit from our own unique wind-down routine and sleeping in an environment that’s cool, dark, and quiet.
As we age, our lifestyles and our sleep challenges may evolve, and aging can be a factor for certain conditions. For example, some people may develop sleep apnea or insomnia as they get older. But we should all reject the idea that it’s okay for us to sleep worse or that we can’t sleep well as we age. And it’s better to start good sleep habits when we’re younger, because we know the science showing poor sleep can affect things like cardiovascular health and cognition.
You sponsor an annual SleepTech® Award. What can you tell us about that?
The SleepTech Award recognizes the year’s most innovative achievement in sleep technology. Every year, we accept applications from companies that are developing product or service solutions that are combining principles of sleep science with technology. Those submissions are judged and narrowed down to finalists. Then, we give out awards in two categories.
The first category is for companies who are developing consumer products to help people get enough of the sleep that they need on a daily — or nightly — basis. The second category recognizes innovative products that serve more of a clinical purpose, and are designed to improve a person’s experience when they are being assessed, diagnosed, or treated for a sleep condition or disorder.
The SleepTech Award is just one of the offerings we provide as part of our SleepTech activities. Generally, it’s important to note that we don’t endorse products like you’ll see from some other influencers or personal brands. Anything we do is grounded in scientific principles, and is evidence or consensus-based. We’ve been publishing guidelines and standards for a decade, and we may say that a particular solution fits those parameters. We want to help the public understand the difference between a solution that can demonstrate it’s legitimate and purposeful to help sleep, versus something that hasn’t.
What’s coming up for the National Sleep Foundation?
Another issue that’s important to us in the public interest is drowsy driving prevention, because drowsy driving is impaired driving. When you’re sleep deprived, it’s like drunk driving in terms of what happens when you get behind the wheel. Because sleep is important for performance we’re also vocal about sleep health and safety for people in the workforce.
A theme that runs through all our work is a commitment to help ensure that anyone and everyone has the opportunity to achieve healthy sleep. This ties broadly into different demographic needs. One example is people that live in urban communities and environments where working parents and families are exposed to high levels of disruptive lighting and noise. Another is kids in many school districts get up very early in the morning to get on the school bus or drive to school, and then have school or work responsibilities that run into the night. And we know several of the common environmental challenges affecting sleep in senior living settings, and even approaches to aging in place. Environments and local policies can make getting healthy sleep a challenge.
Along those lines, we also recently announced an initiative for family sleep health that brings together so much of the sleep health work we’ve done with different age groups — which also fits in with our work in the AgeTech Collaborative and its focus on older adults. Having this opportunity to be a resource for other organizations is one of the reasons we’re so excited about being part of the AgeTech Collaborative.
Are you an ATC startup working on sleep solutions? Apply now for the National Sleep Foundation’s 8th Annual SleepTech® Award, recognizing the year’s most innovative achievement in sleep technology. Applications are due September 26, 2025.
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