Thoughts
I got to know about this book through Gates Notes1 and a few times on Youtube feed. I’m glad that I finally got a chance to read the book. Of course, almost everyone instinctively knows about the importance of sleep. Most people might have had a first hand experience of the ill effects of lack of sleep after going through a sleepless night and struggling through the next day.
This book presents information in such a way that would make one sit and think. One gets to understand that sleep is just not ‘rest’, it is beyond what most people think it is. It defines our personality and is critical for our cognitive ability and creativity. A case could be made that humans have evolved to be the most intelligent species on earth because we make the most use out of our sleep. In comparison to most other animals we sleep less but have more percentage of REM sleep which gives us a huge advantage.
If our closest cousins, the orangutans, need to sleep for almost double the time (around 16 hours), in the the last 350,000 yrs, we have evolved to sleep less - a mere 8 hours. May be this is a trend and in another 100,000 years, humans might sleep much lesser and yet be more effective. Once we figure out the exact semantics of what sleep entails, we probably could speeden it up. During the course of history, we have made many natural processes of the body faster. For e.g., take the case of healing of a wound. Body can take care of it and heal slowly but with medication, it is faster. There are so many different aspects of our body that has become much better due to modern science.
Even if you don’t get a chance to read the entire book, just the first chapter can give you insights about sleep that you can take with you for a lifetime. Alternatively, you could also watch/listen to Walker’s talks on Youtube 2.
Book Notes
- Part 1 - This Thing Called Sleep
Chapter 1 - To sleep …
Chapter 2 - Caffeine, Jet lag, and Melatonin: Losing and Gaining Control of Your Sleep Rhythm
Chapter 3 - Defining and Generating Sleep: Time Dilation and What We Learned from a Baby in 1952
Chapter 4 - Ape Beds, Dinosaurs, and Napping with Half a Brain: Who sleeps, How Do We Sleep, and How Much?
Chapter 5 - Changes in Sleep Across the Life Span
- Part 2 - Why Should You Sleep?
Chapter 6 - Your Mother and Shakespeare Knew: The Benefits of Sleep for the Brain
Chapter 7 - Too Extreme for the Guinness Book of World Records: Sleep Deprivation and the Brain
Chapter 8 - Cancer, Heart Attacks, and a Shorter Life: Sleep Deprivation and the Body
- Part 3 - How and Why We Dream
Chapter 9 Routinely Psychotic: REM-Sleep Dreaming
Chapter 10 Dreaming as Overnight Therapy
Chapter 11 Dream Creativity and Dream Control
- Part 4 - From Sleeping Pills to Society Transformed
Chapter 12 Things That Go Bump in the Night: Sleep Disorders and Death Caused by No Sleep
Chapter 13 iPads, Factory Whistles, and Nightcaps: What’s Stopping You from Sleeping?
Chapter 14 Hurting and Helping Your Sleep: Pills vs. Therapy
Chapter 15 Sleep and Society: What Medicine and Education Are Doing Wrong; What Google and NASA Are Doing Right
Chapter 16 A New Vision for Sleep in the Twenty-First Century
Conclusion: To Sleep or Not to Sleep
Appendix: Twelve Tips for Healthy Sleep
