How to make money in your sleep

Many fledgling creators dream of waking up to viral fame and riches. Now that dream is beginning to look a lot like reality.

Hundreds of TikTok users have begun livestreaming themselves overnight, while they sleep. Brian Hector, 18, did it just last week. Thousands of people tuned in. Some even donated to him.

“I woke up the next morning and ended the live and went over to my mom and was like, ‘Mom, I literally just made money falling asleep,’” said Hector, who has more than 347,000 followers on the app.

Through TikTok’s live feature, viewers can donate digital “coins” that can be cashed out for money. On Hector’s first sleep-stream, he said, he received about $10 (about P50) worth of coins — not riches, exactly, but more than he’d usually be paid to go to sleep ($0).

What most users hope to gain from these sleep-streams are followers. “Overnight my video blew up, and I got over 6,000 new followers,” said Oscar Reyes, 18. “After I stopped the stream I lost followers, so I don’t know if people were just following for the stream, but I grew substantially. I went from 12,000 to 18,600 followers.”

Jasmine Stephens, 16, said that for days, her “for you” feed on TikTok has been full of videos promoting sleep livestreams. “I scrolled and scrolled and saw more and more,” Stephens said. “I was like, OK this is a thing now. I saw videos with over 1 million likes.”

Though it is newly a trend on TikTok, sleeping on camera isn’t exactly a new concept. In 2015, many teenagers began casting their sleep on the platform YouNow, using the hashtag #sleepingsquad.

Twitch, which primarily hosts gaming livestreams, bans on-camera sleeping, since it counts as leaving a feed “unattended.” But plenty of people do it anyway. In January 2019, one Twitch streamer inadvertently passed out and woke up to 200 new followers. The clip, with more than 3.6 million views, has since become the most-watched Twitch video ever.

On Feb. 9, 18.5 million viewers tuned in to watch one man sleep on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese counterpart.

Before they go live, TikTok sleep-streamers usually create a promotional video that they post to their feeds, advertising the sleep-stream happening that night. When bedtime approaches, they prop up their phones on their night stands, crawl under the covers and hit the live button.

“I’ve seen so many people start doing it,” Hector said. “The first time I saw it I thought it was honestly the weirdest thing but also the coolest thing.”

For users who watch sleep-streams, the appeal isn’t necessarily the person streaming but the pop-up community that forms in the stream’s chat section. Livestreams on TikTok aren’t archived, so sleep-streams, many of which are simply a dark blank screen, provide a time and place for users to meet.

“I think it’s about trying to find online friends,” Stephens said.

Todd Neer, 32, has watched a handful of sleep-streams and even done one himself.

“It creates a chance for a live online chat that’s not really available anywhere else in TikTok,” he said. “The sessions aren’t saved, so you just chat with whoever is there. It’s just an opportunity to have a more real-time dialogue than the comments section on someone’s post. It’s a hub for people to have conversations.”

Brian Mandler, a founder of the Network Effect, a digital agency focused on TikTok, said that the streams also provide a level of authenticity that so many users on the platform currently crave. “Audiences really like the behind the scenes of someone’s life,” he said. “They want authentic, engaging content. Watching someone sleeping, while it’s unique and somewhat strange, as you start to understand what really works on social media, it makes sense.”

Between the performance anxiety and all that blue light, not everyone can sleep through a livestream. Reyes said he woke up several times during his own; at one point, he saw about 600 people were tuned in and chatting. “When I woke up they’d be like, ‘OMG he’s awake!’” he said.

Because the sleep-streams are in real time and unedited — versus other TikToks — there are also safety concerns. Rylee Breann, 21, was deliberate about what her viewers would be able to see. “I didn’t show much of my room because I have a lot of pictures,” she said. “I didn’t want to show anything that showed where I lived. You could just see my head and my bed.”

Dale Adams, 21, said that he turned his phone over after a couple hours to shut the stream down. “It was kind of nerve-racking,” he said, “Like, what if someone could hack into my phone and figure out where I am?”

Some users have found other ways to idly host livestreams.

“People have gone live saying, ‘Oh, my parents don’t want me filming myself sleeping, so I’ll stream this other picture in another room overnight,’” Breann said.

“I’ve seen people livestream their rooftop overnight with 10,000 people watching, or people stream a glass of milk while they’re gone at work,” Reyes said. “All these people come into the live just to chat and make group chats.”

Rather than streaming his sleep, Joe Fay, 24, decided to livestream his white Tesla “sleeping” in the driveway overnight. He taped his phone to the window and hooked it up to a charger; by the morning he had accrued $50 worth of digital coins. “It’s a pretty easy thing to do,” he said, adding that he plans to continue streaming until the trend dies out.

The streams can have a pleasant, sedative effect. Some sleep-streamers play soft music, or perform a soothing bedtime routine for their viewers. The experience can be relaxing for the host too.

“When I did it, I felt like people were watching over me so nothing could happen to me,” Reyes said. “I slept like a baby.”


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Short sleep may be tied to infection risk

Adults who sleep no more than five hours per night or who have a diagnosed sleep disorder are more likely to have suffered a recent cold than those who sleep more, according to a new study.

“In many countries, particularly western countries, sleep takes a back seat to productivity, which may make some sense in the short term but certainly not the longer term,” said coauthor Aric A. Prather of the Center for Health and Community at the University of California, San Francisco. “Sleep happens with whatever time is left after all of the other ‘necessary’ tasks are attended to.”

Getting too little sleep can have a direct impact on cardiovascular, endocrine and immune functioning that may increase disease risk over time, Prather told Reuters Health by email.

In addition, “poor sleep may lead to health behaviors that also raise one’s risk for poor heath,” he said. “Short sleepers are less likely to exercise and more likely to engage in less than ideal nutrition that, again over time, can affect health.”

The researchers used responses from more than 22,000 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys between 2005 and 2012. The participants reported their typical weekday hours of sleep, history of diagnosed sleep disorders and whether they had ever told a doctor about having trouble sleeping.

They also answered questions about having a head or chest cold, the flu, pneumonia, or an ear infection over the previous 30 days.

Almost 14 percent of people said they slept no more than five hours per night, 23 percent slept for six hours, 56 percent slept for seven to eight hours, and 7 percent said they slept for nine or more hours per night.

One quarter had told a doctor about trouble sleeping and 7 percent had been diagnosed with a sleep disorder.

Over the previous 30 days, 19 percent of ‘short sleepers’- that is, those with five or fewer hours of sleep per night - had a head or chest cold, compared to 16 percent of those who slept for six hours and 15 percent of those who got seven or more hours.

After accounting for factors like age, sex, race, education level and smoking status, those with a diagnosed sleep disorder were also more likely to have had a cold or infection than others, the researchers reported April 11 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“This data does not allow us to know whether sleep causes an increase in susceptibility to respiratory infections,” only that the two are somehow connected, Prather said.

But in a 2015 study, he and his team experimentally exposed people to the cold virus after assessing their typical sleep, and those who slept six or fewer hours were roughly four times more likely to develop a biologically-verified cold than those who slept more than seven hours, he said.

“It is our hope that this work will help raise the profile of sleep as a critical health behavior that should be considered as an additional vital sign for optimal health,” he said.

“Very little if any training about sleep happens in medical school so most physicians do not know anything about sleep,” said Dr. Sanjay R. Patel of the Center for Sleep and Cardiovascular Outcomes at the University of Pittsburgh. “As a result, they do not feel comfortable talking about sleep with their patients.”

“Similarly, society does not stigmatize the person getting in their car and driving after only four hours of sleep the way it does the person driving after drinking, even though the risk to others on the road may be the same,” Patel told Reuters Health by email.

Chronic poor sleep increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease, he said.

“Sleep deprivation studies in the laboratory have clear effects on immune function, and other clinical studies have shown that poor sleep before exposure to the cold virus influences the risk of actually developing a cold,” said Dr. Daniel J. Buysse of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who was also not part of the new research.

“Like most things, it’s a complicated story, but sleep is likely to play an important role,” he told Reuters Health by email.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

What lack of sleep does to the immune system

MANILA -- Aside from having an effect on a person's mental, emotional and physical well-being, not having enough sleep can also wreak havoc on one's immunity.

In an interview on DZMM's "Magandang Gabi Dok," Dr. Joseph Lee, a surgeon, explained that sleep helps regenerate the structures needed by the body to defend itself.

"Kapag tulog tayo, 'yung immune system natin doon nag-change, parang changing of arms. Ibig sabihin, nagbabago sila. So ngayon, switching sila, ano 'yung namatay, ano 'yung dinedefendan natin na hindi nakayanan, papalitan natin," he said.

However, due to lack of sleep, it becomes more difficult for the body to regenerate what it needs.

"Kung puyat ka pa, maaring hindi mo matugunan 'yung antibodies natin... mababa ang proseso. Everything will be slowed down. May chemical processes din sa katawan na hindi matutugunan ang pagdepensa sa atin," Lee added.

A weaker immune system may lead to illnesses and other conditions.

"Ang ating katawan ay merong mga biological structure... this is our cells, mga defense mechanism natin na nagtutulong sa pagsugpo ng ating mga kalaban, mga antibodies natin," Lee explained, adding that some of these structures only function when needed.

Aside from having enough sleep to help boost the immune system, Lee also recommends taking food supplements, like acai berry, to boost the immune system.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Nintendo to develop device to track sleep, fatigue

TOKYO -- Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. Ltd. will develop a device to measure a user's fatigue and map their sleep, CEO Satoru Iwata said on Thursday, the first offering from the company's newly created healthcare division.

The device will be developed with U.S. firm ResMed Inc., which currently makes products to treat sleep disorders, and will be available in the financial year ending March 2016.

"By using our know-how in gaming... to analyse sleep and fatigue, we can create something fun," Iwata said.

Nintendo, better known for its Mario video game franchise and Wii and Wii U consoles, has said it expects its healthcare division to turn a profit in 2015/2016. The company already offers fitness games on its Wii console, played with a motion sensor controller.

According to an image Iwata shared at a media conference, the device will be about the size of a hand and can be placed on a user's bedside table. It will use microwave transmission sensors to track sleep, with the data collected used to help users cultivate healthy sleeping habits.

Iwata refused to discuss the company's sales expectations for the new device beyond saying that it may be offered via a subscription service rather than a one-off purchase.

"We only start something new if we think we will be able to create a big market, but as I'm not able to discuss pricing plans and other details today I don't think there's much point in giving a figure for our projected scale," he said.

The device was launched a day after Nintendo reported an unexpected quarterly profit, after hit games gave a boost to sales of its Wii U console.

Shares in Nintendo rose as high as 7.7 percent when they opened on the Tokyo stock exchange. They then pared gains to close the morning session up 0.7 percent, slightly outpacing the benchmark Nikkei index, which rose 0.5 percent.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

What causes 'bangungot'?

MANILA -- Does sleeping on a full stomach cause "bangungot"?

Yes, said cardiologist Dr. Willie Ong, who explained that "bangungot" is not similar to having bad dreams or nightmares nor is it caused by a "batibat," a fat woman demon found in Ilocano folklore who supposedly puts her weight on an individual while sleeping until he or she dies of suffocation.

"Merong tinatawag medically bangungot syndrome, ang tawag natin dito acute pancreatitis. Palagay natin isang tao madami siyang kinaing pagkain tapos natulog agad. Dahil sa dami ng kinain, nahihirapan yung pancreas na tunawin yung pagkain, namamaga yung pancreas at merong namamatay dahil dito," Ong said.

But for sleep specialist Dr. Rolando Dela Eva, bangungot can also be called the sudden unexplained death syndrome.

Dela Eva said the sudden unexplained death syndrome is usually experienced by southeast Asian males aged between late 20s and early 40s.

"Ang bangungot ay kadalasan nangyayari sa mga southeast Asian males, mga Filipinos. Merong impact ang culture at of course, kasama na rin yung pagkain," he explained.

Meanwhile, clinical psychologist Dr. Estrella Magno said bangungot, which she described as having nightmares, is caused by an individual's personal problems.

"Every part of the panaginip is about the dreamer. May problema siya na di niya inaasikaso. Nagkakapatong-patong na yan hanggang sa dreams mo lalabas na yan," Magno said.

With differing opinions on what truly causes bangungot, the three experts also offered different advice as to how to help someone suffering from bangungot.

Ong said a person experiencing struggle and a sudden spike in heart beat during sleep should immediately be awakened to prevent further complications.

Magno, meanwhile, said the individual should just confront his or her problems. "Kasi yang bangungot na yan, kung halimbawa malaman mo kung anong ugat ng problema mo, mareresolba yan."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Michael Jackson's sleepless note pulled from auction

A note written by Michael Jackson in which he complains of being unable to sleep has been withdrawn from auction at the request of the late singer's ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley, the auction house said on Wednesday.

Jackson, who died in 2009 after asking his doctor to give him a powerful anesthetic to help him sleep, wrote the note to Presley sometime between 1993-1996, when they were close friends. The two later became husband and wife.

"Lisa I truly need this rest I haven't slept litterally (sic) in 4 days now. I need to be away from phones and business people. I must take care of my health first Im'(sic) crazy for you," reads the handwritten note, scrawled on yellow paper.

Julien's Auctions, which had listed the letter in an upcoming celebrity memorabilia sale, said on Wednesday it pulled the note from its Music Icons auction on June 23rd and 24th at Presley's request.

"I'm assuming that it's because the note is of a personal nature, and we want to honor the request and continue our good relationship with Ms. Presley," chief executive Darren Julien said.

The "Thriller" singer had struggled with insomnia for several years while alive. His personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, told police shortly after Jackson's death that the 50-year-old pop star pleaded for help sleeping during a long, restless night at his home on June 25, 2009, the day he died.

Murray was convicted last year of involuntary manslaughter after delivering a fatal dose of propofol - normally used to sedate patients for surgery - and a cocktail of sedatives to Jackson

source: interaksyon.com