Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams Kindle Edition

I am an editor for one of the most visited natural health sites and as such had an opportunity to review a prepublication copy of this excellent book. Sleep is one of the most under rated health strategies and if you haven’t ever taken a deep dive in how to understand and optimize your sleep this is one of the best resources out there to optimize your sleep.

Are you tired? If your answer is yes, it would seem relatively straightforward to assume you're not getting enough sleep. Yet, signs of sleep deprivation may not always be this obvious (and there are other factors besides sleep loss that can make you feel fatigued).

Dr. Walker does an outstanding job of helping you understand the mystery of why we sleep and unravels some of it mysteries, like why your brain shuts down motor control to your muscles during the most active part of sleep, REM sleep. During REM sleep, there is a nonstop barrage of motor commands swirling around your brain, and they underlie the movement-rich experience of dreams. Thankfully Nature tailored a physiological straitjacket that forbids these fictional movements from becoming reality which protects you from harming yourself. Your brain paralyzes your body during REM sleep so your mind can dream safely.

Dr. Walker also consults for many professional teams and helps their athletes understand how sleep is one of the most sophisticated, potent, and powerful—not to mention legal—performance enhancers that has real game-winning potential. Sleep can radically reduce career or season ending injuries and massively improve performance if optimized correctly.

On the downside he reviews the dangers of what most of us do every night. Not sleep enough. This coming week, more than 2 million people in the US will fall asleep while driving their motor vehicle. That’s more than 250,000 every day, with more such events during the week than weekends for obvious reasons. More than 56 million Americans admit to struggling to stay awake at the wheel of a car each month. As a result, 1.2 million accidents are caused by sleepiness each year in the United States. You may find it surprising to learn that vehicle accidents caused by drowsy driving exceed those caused by alcohol and drugs combined. And if you happen to be drinking or using drugs the results are not additive but synergistically exponential radically increasing your risk of an accident, injury or death.

These are only a few examples of the highly useful information you will receive by reading this book. Highly recommended.

I'm about 75 pages into this book and it is already one of the most fascinating, important, and engaging books I've ever read. And it's funny, too, which was unexpected. This should be required reading by EVERYONE. After you read this book, I can't imagine how you could not prioritize getting an 8-hour night of sleep every night. Some astounding facts:
-Routinely sleeping less than 6 or 7 hours a night increases your risk of cancer by 50%.
-Every species every studied, preceding the emergence of vertebrates even, sleeps. Some species can sleep with only half their brain (!!). Sleep is an incredibly risky thing for an animal to do because you are completely vulnerable to predators when you sleep. But sleep is THAT important that it was preserved by evolution.
-After even one night of less than 5 hours of sleep, natural killer cells (which kill cancer cells that appear in your body EVERY DAY) drop by 70%. Just one night!!!
Buy it, read it, and then share it with everyone you know.

Good morning, afternoon or evening… Depending where in the world you’re reading this. Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker is one of the most important books for me personally that I have read in my entire life.

The positive impact it has in health, psychological well-being, and yes even longevity cannot be understated here…

Having read an article in the BBC press prior to its release I had pre-ordered the book, and it arrived happily on time via my Amazon prime on it’s release date.
So important was the content of the pages that the fact that the dust jacket was torn in shipping was of little consequence. I taped it and moved on....

In the one week since I received my copy, I have sent out six copies to my closest family members, and even ordered one through Amazon.com UK for one of my closest companions who lives in Sherwood.

But I am not done by a longshot… As Money flows in I will continue to purchase copies of this most important book for all of those who have touched my life deeply enough that I would try to give them something I consider of profound importance.
Professor Walker is articulate, empathic and educated. The structure of the chapters flows seamlessly and at no point do I feel anything other then positive direct education happening throughout the book.

I have told family members for years that sleeping is one of my favorite hobbies… Thanks to this amazing book I understand more importantly my own REM and NREM sleep patterns and the importance of not only following are more natural circadian rhythm‘s but how to limit caffeine and yes almost completely do away with alcohol in an effort to develop better sleep patterns myself which will only benefit me in the long term.

What I love most about this book is that what we can do to cut off more adverse diseases, improve cognitive and emotive capabilities is within our grasp… The general lay-person needs no special tools, medications or devices to achieve maximum results in improving every aspect of their life. That in and of itself creates a universally available path to better living that includes rather than excludes those willing to read.

I am hopeful that this will be translated into other languages so that I can give away copies to friends who do not speak English who I would really love to share this remarkable book with.

In the meantime I will continue until I reach some sort of saturation point to buy as many copies as I can reasonably afford so that I can make the step for the people in my life, Because after all we want those around us to have the best quality of life possible.
This book sheds bright brilliant beautiful light on how to achieve that goal.