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Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

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Description

“Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.” —Bill Gates A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” (Financial Times) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber. Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don't sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remained elusive. An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. Within the brain, sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming mollifies painful memories and creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge to inspire creativity. Walker answers important questions about sleep: how do caffeine and alcohol affect sleep? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? How do common sleep aids affect us and can they do long-term damage? Charting cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and synthesizing decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood, and energy levels; regulate hormones; prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes; slow the effects of aging; increase longevity; enhance the education and lifespan of our children, and boost the efficiency, success, and productivity of our businesses. Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner


Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 3, 2017


Edition ‏ : ‎ Illustrated


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1501144316


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 18


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds


Reading age ‏ : ‎ 1 year and up


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • disappointing
After hearing the author on the Joe Rogan podcast I excitedly bought the book...and then regretted it. The author went on a nauseating rant by telling us that sleep is important in 312 different ways...and yet didn't really offer any solid advice to help us get more sleep. In other words he stated the obvious, but didn't offer anything concrete or practical. I have no doubt he is an amazing sleep expert, but we all know that sleep is good for you. The challenge is figuring out how to get more of it or better quality. I'll save you the money by summarizing the book: "Sleep is really, really, really, really, really important. If you don't get enough sleep, you could have many problems because sleep is really, really, really important. I'm not going to tell you how to get better or more sleep, I will only tell you that sleep is really important." Personally, I think he's holding out on this information for his next book. Grrrrrrrr. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2018 by Carnivore
    • Fascinating work, but the scare tactics are abused and may backfire
Well researched and full of powerful anecdotes. A couple of problems stop me from enthusiastically recommend it though: 1. It doesn't live up to the tile: the book is mostly a collection of facts and interesting research results and it fails to provide any kind of overarching theory of why we sleep. 2. The main tool used in the book is the scare tactic: "here's what happens if sleep quality is compromised". It works, and it might even be the right approach in many cases (schools starting before 9am is simply barbaric). The problem is, for someone going though sleep troubles, this can dramatically make things worse. It took me ~6months to recover from this book. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2019 by lemo
    • Don't read this book if you have anxiety and trouble falling asleep!!
I wish I had never read this book! It is full of all of the harmful effects of not getting enough sleep (which is interesting) plus he adds in a section on a rare disorder that will eventually kill a person from lack of sleep. Why oh why did he have to add in this extremely rare disease? My poor anxiety riddled brain now thinks that I may have this disorder and won't let me sleep! I thought I had my anxiety induced sleep insomnia fixed a couple of years ago, and that all changed (for the worse) since I read this book. I know what you are thinking... just tell your brain to stop thinking about it, well that is easier said than done when you have anxiety. This is a great book if you are interested in the science of sleep, but I would strongly advise against reading it for someone who struggles with anxiety or insomnia. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2019 by Tyler Deschaine
    • One of the most important books I've ever read
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. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2017 by Molly Gebrian
    • Excellent book on improving your sleep and why that's important!
I love this book! As a life-long poor sleeper, I've read dozens of books that supposedly held the answer to solving my sleep problems. None have, until now. The author not only gives you lots of ideas on how to get a better night's sleep, he tells you why it's so important to get in your nightly 8 hours. Who knew there were so many areas of life impacted by sleep, particularly the lack of it! There is a lot of information here, all of which I found very interesting and quite helpful. At the end of the book he lists a number of ideas that you can put into use immediately. I have seen a great improvement in the quality and amount of sleep I'm getting now, so I feel very comfortable about recommending this book. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2017 by GW1947
    • Good, but could have waited for more advances in research
Generally, it was a good book. It was well written and the information seemed reasonable. The weakness of the book is that I don't think it was the right time to write this book: 1. The advice about how to improve sleep was good, but they were mostly things that are already generally known. There were no surprises. 2. The section on dreams (which was my main motivation for reading), was shorter than I had hoped (based on its prominence in the title). It seems like understanding dreams is too early in its research for a book targeted for a general audience. There was a lot of good anecdotes, but not a lot of underlying reasoning. There was a lot of "this is what happens," but not a lot of "why this happens." This is not a criticism of the author. I believe the author accurately portrayed the current state of research on dreams in the scientific community. And, I wish the author (and others) well. I hope their research continues and I really want to know what they eventually figure out. But, when I bought this book, I was expecting they already had more figured out. I look forward to reading his next book in a few years. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2018 by Doug D.

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