This Is What's Ruining The World's Sleep -- And It's Not Our Technology Addiction

Between keeping our smartphones by our pillows and binge-watching Netflix before finally closing our eyes, you'd think our ever-growing connection to technology was responsible for most of our sleep woes. But it turns out stressing about money and work takes the sleep deprivation-causing cake, according to a new survey.

In recognition of World Sleep Day and with the help of research firm KJT Group, Philips conducted a survey titled "Sleep: A Global Perspective" to help gain insight into the main sleep disturbances affecting people worldwide. They found that worrisome thoughts about work and economic or financial issues are the top two stressors keeping people awake at night. Speaking with almost 8,000 people across 10 countries, the research team gathered information regarding participants' sleep times, wake times, daily routines, sleeping environments and perceptions of their work-life balance to determine the greatest obstacles in the way of developing healthier sleep habits.

There is no question whether people believe sleep is important. Ninety-six percent of respondents said sleep is valuable to them, and sleep proved the most valuable of the 12 measured factors influencing a person's overall health and well-being. However, money and financial security ranked a close second, and 28 percent said economic and financial stress was their most common sleep disrupter, followed by work stress at 25 percent.

"Our report indicates how psychological factors can impact sleep, and how those factors can change depending on the times in which we live," Mark Aloia, Ph.D., the senior director of global clinical research for Philips, said in a statement. "Combating stress is critical to a good night's sleep, but the toughest part for people is often just getting motivated to make changes."

Speaking of changes (or lack thereof), 57 percent of participants said that while the quality of their sleep could be better, they haven't taken any measures to improve it. This gap between diagnosing a problem and implementing and maintaining steps to solve it is where much of the world falls short on healthful habits in general.

"There are a lot of things that feed into inaction in terms of healthy living," Aloia told The Huffington Post. "There's the individual, psychological component -- the feeling that my life isn't bad enough to need dramatic change -- and implementing and maintaining those changes is hard. And there's the societal component -- we wear lack of sleep like a badge, and as long as we do that as a society, we are going to make it very hard to take action at a societal level."

When it comes to sleep efficiency specifically, Aloia says employers must take the lead in allowing their employees to value their health in order to help minimize the current conflict between sleep needs and existing stress. The resulting healthy workforce isn't just helpful for the employees individually -- it's better for the company's bottom line.

Aloia also said that even though it didn't rank at the top of the list, we still shouldn't downplay the role that technology plays in disrupting the quality and quantity of our nightly shut-eye. According to the survey, 67 percent of people still sleep with their cell phones within reach, and 21 percent said that technology significantly disrupts their sleep.

"Technology is a facilitator of change, but it doesn't change behavior," he said. "On a personal level, we need to value technology enough to personalize it and create that change in our own lives." Instead of using distraction techniques like watching television (and even reading a book!) during our necessary decompression time at the end of the day, Aloia suggests trying mindfulness, meditation or gentle exercise, all of which provide a mental buffering of sorts and create hormonal changes in the body that help us work through sleep-disturbing stress.

To learn more about the survey, check out the infographic below.

Here's How To Fix The CEO Pay Problem

We’re doing CEO pay wrong.

Incentive pay -- compensation based on verifiable performance measures like stock price -- is on the rise. It’s supposed to help align executives’ interests with those of shareholders. Instead, it leads corporate boards to pay executives more than necessary, and ultimately hurts shareholders and workers.

With incentive pay, the company could end up paying the CEO for something over which he had no real influence. Or the company could end up not paying the CEO for actions that were good for the company, but for some reason didn’t raise the stock price. Most likely, the CEO will single-mindedly pursue actions that will boost the metric he’s paid on, even if they only succeed in the short term. Over the longer term, paying your CEO a fantastic amount can hurt stock performance.

The solution, according to a new paper by Peter Cebon, of the Melbourne Business School, and Benjamin Hermalin, a finance professor at the University of California’s Haas School of Business, is for the government to limit performance-based executive contracts and make informal pay agreements more attractive.

An informal contract, in its broadest and perhaps too-simple but illustrative sense, is like a board telling a CEO: “We will pay you for being a good CEO. The better a CEO you are, the more we’ll pay you.” It is, Hermalin said, really just a “series of promises” that aren’t legally enforceable.

Alluding to Odysseus’ escape from the Sirens, the paper's authors write that corporate boards setting executive pay need be to “lashed to the mast” with restrictions on the size of formal executive pay packages, which are the sorts of contracts that tie pay to objective, verifiable outcomes like the company's stock price or specific accounting metrics.

But boards can’t actually tie themselves to a mast, Hermalin noted to The Huffington Post. That’s why they need the government to restrict their options. This could be done, he said, by boosting taxes on all performance-based pay, by dramatically increasing taxes on incentive pay above a certain level, or simply putting a cap on total formal incentive-based pay.

Such regulation would encourage boards to enter into more efficient informal contracts, or what economists call relational contracts.

Having an informal contract for an executive may seem like a strange arrangement, but it's quite common for other workers. The vast majority of white-collar workers have a type of informal contract: a series of objectives established and shared between manager and employee. If and how those objectives are met is how salary and continued employment are decided. These objectives may be very well understood by the worker and his manager (hopefully, they are), and there are things the manager cannot fire the worker for or use to determine the worker's pay (see: discrimination, etc); but someone looking in from the outside with no experience in the worker's field would not be a very good judge of his informal contract.

For an informal contract to work at the executive level, there has to be mutual trust between the board and the CEO. The board also has to know a lot about its company and the CEO’s actions. That forces boards to be more engaged in, and informed about, the companies they oversee. That’s good, because when corporate directors are stretched too thin, the company’s performance suffers.

The problem with formally tying pay to stock price, Hermalin said, is that “stock performance is incredibly noisy, and a lot of that noise has nothing to do with what an executive actually did.”

The solution to that problem is for executive pay to be set on an informal basis by people who know the company and can directly observe the CEO. And if it takes government intervention in the market to achieve that, Hermalin is not too worried. There’s no “economic theorem,” he says, “that just letting boards write whatever contracts they want with their executives has to be the right course of action.”

Pepsi's Latest Ad Campaign Has Little To Do With Soda

Pepsi wants to sell you a feeling, with a little soda on the side.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the soda giant's famous "Pepsi Challenge" campaign, which asked people to do a blind taste test to see if they preferred Pepsi or Coke. To celebrate, the company is re-launching the challenge, complete with celebrities like Usher and Serena Williams, as well as Vine and Snapchat sensation Jerome Jarre. But instead of picking Pepsi or Coke, the new campaign asks fans to take part in sports, tech, design and music challenges.

A new Pepsi ad released as part of the challenge. The can dispenses emojis instead of soda.

The modernized challenge isn’t completely devoid of images of Pepsi cans, and there will be a taste test component in some markets. But the ad push centers largely around creating an emotional connection with the Pepsi brand and less on lauding the taste of its cola.

That's because the company's ethos is about more than just a bubbly drink, said Brad Jakeman, the president of PepsiCo's Global Beverages Group.

“This is a brand that has stood next to major cultural moments all around the world; it’s a brand that always operates in the consumer zeitgeist,” Jakeman said. “The brand is much bigger than a product concept, and actually that has allowed us to do a lot of interesting things with this brand beyond soda.”

It makes sense for Pepsi to minimize the campaign's focus on soda because the sugary, carbonated drink is falling out of fashion. Americans in particular are opting more often for energy drinks and enhanced waters as the nation becomes more health-conscious. PepsiCo’s snack division, Frito-Lay, has helped buoy the company amid sluggish soda sales in recent years.

The decline in millions of liters of soda sold in the U.S.

The Pepsi Challenge was first imagined as a direct provocation to the company's main rival, Coke. At the time, Coke was a big-time national brand, while Pepsi was mostly popular regionally. As a result, Pepsi had to focus on innovations -- plastic two-liter bottles and aggressive marketing -- to make a dent in Coke’s lead, according to former Pepsi CEO John Sculley.

“Everything that I was expected to do at Pepsi was about competition with Coca-Cola,” said Sculley, who is also the author of Moonshot! Game-Changing Strategies to Build Billion-Dollar Businesses.

An early Pepsi Challenge ad.

Forty years later, that strategy doesn’t make sense in a world where Coke isn’t Pepsi’s main problem. Now, changing tastes and smaller upstarts offering a wide array of alternatives to soda are some of the biggest threats to the company.

“If you’re Pepsi, you have to do something,” said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “Trends are not going their way.”

This isn’t a problem unique to Pepsi. Legacy companies like McDonald’s and Coke are also searching for ways to give people a warm and fuzzy feeling about their brands even as shoppers eschew their products. Coke’s Super Bowl campaign encouraged viewers to make the Internet a more positive place by adding the hashtag “Make It Happy” to negative tweets, which flagged a bot to turn the text into cute cartoon images. McDonald’s also courted controversy after the chain released an ad highlighting messages like “thank you veterans” and “keep jobs in Toledo” that franchisees often feature on the signs outside their restaurants.

“What you’re seeing now is less emphasis on the product because they find themselves in this situation where the product itself is not that appealing,” said Denise Lee Yohn, a brand consultant who has worked with Burger King, New Balance and other top companies.

It’s hard to say whether creating a halo around a brand actually translates into selling more soda or burgers, Calkins said. It's easier to track the impact of old-school promotion tactics, like giving out coupons, than campaigns based on social media.

Now, the company will wait and see what kind of success it can have with a Pepsi Challenge that relies heavily on people liking it enough to tweet about it or talk about it on Facebook. “The challenge is can they come with something that’s really compelling," Calkins said.

Everything You Need To Know About The Apple Watch

You can put the Apple Watch on your wrist April 10.

That's according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who stepped on stage Monday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco to unveil the final details about the wearable device, which was first announced back in September. April 10 is the preorder date and the first day you'll be able to try the Watch on in an Apple Store. The product will be available to own April 24.

The most basic version of the watch, Apple Watch Sport, will start at $349 for the 38mm watch face. The 42mm face is priced at $399. Upgrading to the stainless steel version takes the starting price to $549. Finally, the 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition starts at $10,000.

"It's not just with you, it's on you," Cook said of the new gadget.

The Apple Watch's basic features haven't changed since it was first announced in September, but Kevin Lynch, Apple's vice president of technology, went through highlights Monday. We've got the details here.

Keep in mind that for many of the features to work, the Apple Watch needs to be paired with an iPhone 5 (or later) running the latest version of iOS 8.

Here's a recap of the Apple Watch's features:

Fitness

A big draw for the Apple Watch is its suite of health and activity trackers. The built-in Activity app shows you how many calories you've burned in a day, how much exercise you've gotten, and how much you've stood up. It offers goal-tracking for each.

Credit: Apple

The device will also show you a weekly summary of your activity every Monday, and it will offer suggestions to improve your fitness in those reports. Its built-in heart sensor helps keep track of your exercise during workouts. It's water-resistant (not waterproof), so you don't have to worry about destroying it with all of your technology-enabled sweating.

Finally, outside of the basic information in the Activity app, there's a Workout app that will keep tabs on the nitty-gritty: total distance when running, average pace and so on. When you achieve personal milestones, the Fitness app will display an achievement badge on the screen, perhaps in a bid to make rigorous physical activity feel more like an Xbox game.

Glances

Important information is just a glance away on the Apple Watch. Use your finger to swipe up from the bottom of the watch face and you can check the weather, look at your calendar, control your music or check your heart rate.

Apps

It's always been clear that Apple Watch would support apps made by third-party developers. On Monday, Apple showcased a few examples and announced that they can be downloaded via a connected iPhone. Apple Watch supports WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging app, and Uber, which now lets you summon a ride straight from your wrist. An app from the W hotel will allow users to unlock their hotel room using the Apple Watch by holding it up to a "lock pad near the door handle."

Siri

Everyone's favorite digital assistant is on the watch, because of course it is. Apple Watch owners will be able to say, "Hey, Siri" into their devices and then ask for turn-by-turn directions or information about upcoming events. Siri will also allow you to dictate text messages to contacts simply by speaking into your Apple Watch.

The "Taptic Engine"

Apple Watch will tap you on the wrist when you receive a notification. Cook said Monday that any notification you get on your iPhone will be viewable on the Apple Watch.

If you want walking directions, for example, it will tap you when it's time to turn. Apple says it will provide a different "tactile sensation" depending on the alert.

It will also allow you to tap other Apple Watch wearers or share your heartbeat with them, which Apple characterizes as "simple and intimate," rather than a sobering example of mankind's inexorable march toward technological singularity.

Credit: Apple

A Screen You Can Draw On

Texting is great and all, but Apple Watch owners will be able to communicate with one another by drawing on the device's screen. The doodles will be animated, illustrating how they were drawn, and then they'll vanish from the display.

That may seem a bit inconsequential, but you might have said the same thing about Snapchat's short, self-destructing messages -- and that company is valued at $19 billion now.

Credit: Apple

Instant Messages

When you get a text message on your iPhone, the Apple Watch will be able to display it on your wrist and offer you quick ways to respond based on "the context of your message," like if someone is asking you to meet for coffee at 2 p.m. Those responses can be along the lines of, "Leaving now," or they could simply be an animated emoji.

The Apple Watch also lets you see new email messages, of course.

Phone Calls On Your Wrist

Unlike certain competitors -- like the Moto 360 smartwatch for Android -- Apple Watch allows you to answer incoming calls and have a conversation straight from your wrist, using the device's speaker and microphone. (The Moto 360 allows you to answer calls with the watch, but you have to speak into your actual phone.)

Different Watch Faces

Mickey Mouse watches are classic, and now you can have a modern version on your wrist, thanks to Apple's different watch faces.

The wide array of face options includes an astronomy-themed faceh showing the planets, a minimalistic analog display and many more.

Battery

The Apple Watch powers up via a magnetic charger on its back, and Cook said it will last for 18 hours.

***

Cook's announcement capped off weeks of speculation that turned the invitation to the event into a news item itself. Anticipation for the gadget, and its success or failure, reached a fever pitch following a new 12-page advertisement in Vogue, a cover image for Self magazine and rumors about how it could shift the company's strategy for its Apple Stores.

The Apple Watch is the company's first foray into a new product category under Tim Cook, who became Apple's CEO when Steve Jobs stepped down in 2011. It follows a record-setting, $18 billion quarter for the Cupertino tech giant.

Apple now faces the challenge of getting people to buy the wearable, which could be perceived as little more than a luxury item complementing the technology one already owns. The $10,000 gold variation of the Apple Watch, also announced Monday, does little to dispel that notion. Industry experts seem split on whether anyone will want it, though some have reminded readers that the iPhone was met with similar skepticism upon its announcement.

The Consumer Electronics Association has estimated that 10.8 million smartwatches will be sold in 2015 -- about 14 percent of the number of iPhones Apple sold in the last three months of 2014 alone.

10 Talking Points For Any Apple Watch Conversation

The Apple Watch is coming. We're about to get more details, but we know it'll ship in April and start at $349.

Expect a lot of water-cooler conversation about the new gadget as we get closer to people actually being able to buy the thing. (Too much conversation, perhaps.) You'll want some smart things to say, so we dug through some insightful writing to help you piece together an opinion.

Will anyone buy the thing?

• Yes: "What matters for adoption of a technology isn’t what’s possible for the user -- what matters is what’s easy." -- Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal

• No: "I don't see myself texting, getting directions, or browsing cherished photo memories on my wrist. I have a smartphone for that." -- Eugene Kim, PCMag

• Maybe: "Solid survey research suggested not only that the iPhone would fail, but also that it would fail particularly hard in the United States because our phones and cameras are good enough, already." -- Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

• Who cares? "They say [the Apple Watch] will revolutionize the way we slowly and loudly repeat ourselves into electronic devices." -- Jimmy Kimmel, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

Who's the device made for?

• Fashionistas: "Any tech worn that close to the body is going to have more of an emphasis on design specs and aesthetics, because it’s just so intensely personal." -- Dominic Basulto, The Washington Post

• Fitness buffs: "It reminds you to stand up at least once an hour, it suggests goals for how many calories you should burn each day, and it keeps track of your exercise." -- Lisa Eadicicco, Business Insider

• Apple fanboys: "I suspect many are jumping to the conclusion that the only reason someone will pay thousands of dollars for [a gold] Apple Watch is to wear it forever as a status symbol. Instead, people will pay thousands of dollars in order to have the opportunity to buy an Apple product that can be worn." -- Neil Cybart, Above Avalon

What else does Apple have going on?

• iPhone sales are superb: "Apple’s iPhone sales in the last three months of 2014 were more than triple Google Inc.’s total revenue reported in its last quarter ($16.52 billion). That means the iPhone is worth more than Android, Google search, Windows and Office combined." -- Thomas Halleck, International Business Times

• It's launching a streaming service: "You better believe that when Apple’s streaming music service comes out later this year, it’s going to come hard." -- Josh Constine, TechCrunch

• It might be making a car: "The Cupertino, Calif., company has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. The project, code-named “Titan,” initially is working on the design of a vehicle that resembles a minivan, one of the people said." -- Daisuke Wakabayashi and Mike Ramsey, The Wall Street Journal

So there you have it: 10 things you can bring up whenever someone mentions the Apple Watch. You're welcome.

Courting Disaster: Obamacare Is Back At The Supreme Court, And These 6 Lives Hang In The Balance

Obamacare is back before the Supreme Court in a case that could gut the health care law and leave millions of Americans facing severe consequences.

King v. Burwell, a lawsuit that originated in conservative and libertarian think tanks, alleges that a stray phrase in the Affordable Care Act -- “an exchange established by the state” -- means the federal government isn’t allowed to provide subsidies to the residents of states that refused to establish health insurance exchanges under the law.

Only 13 states and the District of Columbia have their own exchanges. If this bid to derail the Affordable Care Act succeeds, the subsidies would disappear -- maybe immediately, maybe a little later -- for Obamacare enrollees everywhere else.

Behind the numbers, however, is a very human story. Without the subsidies, health insurance costs would spike beyond the means of low- and moderate-income recipients. As a result, close to 10 million people would lose their health coverage. Many others would face major increases in the premiums they pay for insurance.

The Huffington Post interviewed six Americans at risk of the worst effects of a high court ruling against Obamacare. We wanted to know how the law has affected their lives already, and how the absence of subsidies might affect them in the future. They told stories of life and death, financial ruin, lifelong plans in jeopardy and families disrupted. Here are those stories, as told by the people who would be living them. Karen Hines
Virginia Joe Lucas
Pennsylvania Jay Joshi
Texas Dave Price
Illinois Sheila Tyson
Alabama Jared Blitz
Arizona

Airbnb Gained A Very Powerful Friend In Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is a fan of Airbnb.

The billionaire business magnate, who serves as chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, endorsed the room-sharing startup in a Saturday morning letter to shareholders.

The so-called Oracle of Omaha suggested the 7-year-old service, which allows users to rent lodging to each other for short periods of time, as an alternative to hotel rooms for attendees of his annual conference in Nebraska’s largest city.

Expecting record attendance, Buffett said he enlisted Airbnb to help obtain extra listings in Omaha around the time of the May conference.

“Airbnb’s services may be especially helpful to shareholders who expect to spend only a single night in Omaha and are aware that last year a few hotels required guests to pay for a minimum of three nights,” he wrote. “That gets expensive. Those people on a tight budget should check the Airbnb website.”

Airbnb said it was thankful for the support.

"Once again, we are thrilled to gain the support of Warren Buffett as we help the residents of Omaha open their homes to travelers for the annual shareholder's meeting," Maria Parra Rodriguez, an Airbnb spokeswoman, told The Huffington Post. "Not only does hosting provide guests with a unique, local experience, it also generates supplemental income for hosts that can help in many ways.”

The company has faced challenges in recent months. In October, New York’s attorney general released a report claiming that three-quarters of Airbnb’s listings in New York City were illegal.

Still, Airbnb has ponied onward. The company is raising an enormous round of funding that would value it at $20 billion, according to a report published on Friday by TechCrunch.

This story has been updated with a comment from Airbnb.