Review: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you are like me, you have tried to cheat sleep. You have tried to get by on less, setting alarm clocks extra early, pushing through weariness, and, possibly, gulping coffee by the gallons.

A careful reading of Why We Sleep -- a sweeping summary of sleep science with comprehensive details on all of the most recent randomized, double-blind studies on sleep – will profoundly change your regard for the 8-hours-are-a-must mantra.

This is the most important book on wellness I have read in many years. In fact, for 50 years (yes, 50) I have consumed multiple cups of black coffee, every day. After reading the chapter on caffeine and how adenosine works, I had an awakening unlike any caffeine jolt of the past. I am already down to one cup of half-caf per day. After 50 years of hour-by-hour caffeination.

This is a transformative book. I would love to see Why We Sleep become mandatory reading in middle school or high school.

You will not only learn how sleep protects us against cancer, cardiovascular disease, immune disorders, obesity, mental illness, infertility, diabetes, and dementia; you will learn the science of sleep. You will come to thoroughly understand the difference between REM sleep (dream sleep) and NREM sleep. You will understand what the brain and body are doing during these stages of sleep and the dangers of unnaturally shortening, interrupting or truncating these stages. You will discover how most deadly car accidents are caused by sleepy driving. You will learn how tragically misguided our nation is on school schedules, shiftwork, and inflexible work schedules. You will learn about the brain’s unique sewage system – how it takes out the trash, and how inadequate sleep is low-level brain damage, every time it happens. You will learn how we never actually “catch up” on what was lost due to lack of sleep. You can nap – that’s fine. You can feel better rested then – that’s good, too. However, the science shows the damage done and how it does not get undone. Hence, the strong connection between inadequate sleep and a shorter life and disease processes.

There were so many studies/statistics which stunned me but the greatest of these was the impact of sleep on learning. A quote: “…if you don’t sleep (fully) the very first night after learning, you lose the chance to consolidate memories, even if you get lots of “catch-up” sleep thereafter. In terms of memory, then, sleep is not like the bank. You cannot accumulate a debt and hope to pay it off at a later point in time. Sleep for memory consolidation is an all-or-nothing event.”

Other important quotes from this book; I hope these convince you to get the book and commit to read it carefully:

* The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span.

*Getting too little sleep across the adult life span will significantly raise your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

*Adults forty-five years or older who sleep fewer than six hours a night are 200 percent more likely to have a heart attack or stroke during their lifetime, as compared with those sleeping seven to eight hours a night

*Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer

*…neither naps nor caffeine can salvage more complex functions of the brain, including learning, memory, emotional stability, complex reasoning, or decision-making.

*Without sufficient sleep, amyloid plaques build up in the brain, especially in deep-sleep-generating regions, attacking and degrading them. The loss of deep NREM sleep caused by this assault therefore lessens the ability to remove amyloid from the brain at night, resulting in greater amyloid deposition. More amyloid, less deep sleep, less deep sleep, more amyloid, and so on and so forth.
This book simply must be read.



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