This is the second year that the Brazilian Sleep Society (ABS) organized a Sleep Week, that occurred from March 09 to March 14, 2015. Rather than focusing on a single day, the rationale of organizing a sleep week is to increase the possibility of interaction and exposition of Sleep related themes with our Society. The main theme was “Wake up for the importance of sleep” The specific themes were:
– Monday March 9th: Sleep deprivation
– Tuesday March 10th: Insomnia
– Wednesday March 11th: Sleep and shift-workers
– Thursday March 12th: Sleep in children and adolescent
– Friday March 13th: Sleep Apnea
– Saturday March 14th: Sleep in the 24/7 society.
Several activities, such as lectures, interviews and events in public spaces, were conducted with the main aim to inform and educate the society to the importance of a good night of sleep. We encouraged the society members to conduct activities in different parts of Brazil and with diverse target audience. Brazilian sleep specialists were invited to organize texts and lectures related to each topic. The material were available in the Hot Site specifically organized in our ABS site. The hot site Sleep Week was instrumental and sereved as general guide for population and also helped the ABS members to organized their activities around Brazil. (www.absono.com.br/semana_do_sono) (site in portuguese). ABS has 1,200 affiliate members. We also posted in the site the schedule of the activities conducted in Brazil. The site activities (Sleep Week texts and schedule) were also covered in the social media (13,155 likes in the facebook page – www.facebook.com/associacaobrasileiradosono). Furthermore, we had an important insertion in the media: 8 news and/or interviews covered the Sleep Week in regional and national journals in radio and television. The television coverage reached an estimate of 1,1 million spectators across Brazil (3 channels: Gazeta, Globo News and TV Globo).
Our main event occurred in Sao Paulo – SP, Brazil on Saturday. We finished our Sleep Week with an interactive event to the general public of all ages present in the Paulista Avenue, the main avenue of Sao Paulo. This event was organized in a paternship with the Department of Psychobiology and the Post-Graduate Program in Psychobiology of the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo (UNIFESP). We highlight the great support of Paula Araujo (Post-doctoral fellow at UNIFESP; ABS member) that coordinated the activity. Professors, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students from UNIFESP organized several activities (computer games, questionnaires, educational posters, games for children, and handouts) to inform and educate the public about individual differences in sleep need, consequences of sleep deprivation and sleep disturbances, and sleep hygiene. The event occured during all saturday, from 09 a.m. to 05 p.m., reaching about 3,000 people (number of handouts with sleep hygiene tips distributed). The experience to talk about sleep in a non-scientific language, to learn the society needs and curiosities about sleep, and the possibility to contribute to public awareness about sleep medicine and sleep science were the gains of the organizers. The recognition of the society about the importance of sleep for their lives and the importance of the sleep medicine research highlighted the successful of our event. This event was coverd by the main Brazilan TV channels.
