Who should read this book?
Anyone who could use some motivation to have enough sleep
People who want to live healthier and in particular those who want to lose weight.
Parents because it will help their children.
Why you should read this book (or not)?
We all need sleep. Hence, the findings in this book apply to every single one. EVERYONE. Sleep is so important and yet so many people do not have sufficient sleep. It also contains many practical tips, like for elderly people and what things you should do or avoid.
In general, this is not an easy book to read, as it contains quite some explanation of the scientific methods used to come to a specific conclusion. So although the conclusions are relevant for you, you might prefer to watch some YouTube videos, such as
I think the learnings should ideally become part of standard education and be thought to children during school time. (I know that is a bit of an idealistic view).
Interesting extracts
“When a night owl is forced to wake up too early, their prefrontal cortex remains in a disabled ‘offline’ state. (…) Society treats night owls rather unfairly on two accounts. First is the label of being lazy, based on a night owl’s wont to wake up later in the day, due to the fact that they did not fall asleep until the early-morning hours. Others (usually morning larks) will chastise night owls on the erroneous assumption that such preferences are a choice, and if they were not so slovenly, they could easily wake up early. However, night owls are not owls by choice. They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hardwiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate. (…) Owls are more chronically sleep-deprived, having to wake up with the larks, but not being able to fall asleep until far later in the evening.”
“How do you know whether you are routinely getting enough sleep? While a clinical sleep assessment is needed to thoroughly address this issue, an easy rule of thumb is to answer two simple questions. Frist, after waking up in the morning, could you fall back asleep at ten or eleven a.m.? If the answer is “yes” you are likely not getting sufficient sleep quantity and/or quality. Second, can you function optimally without caffeine before noon? If the answer is “no”, then you are most likely self-medicating your state of chronic sleep deprivation.”
“Obtain anything less than 8h of sleep a night, and especially less than 6h a night, and the following happens: time to physical exhaustion drops by 10 to 30%, and aerobic output is significantly reduced. Similar impairments are observed in limb extension force and vertical jump height, together with decreases in peak and sustained muscle strength. Add to this marked impairments in cardiovascular, metabolic, and respiratory capabilities that hamper an underslept body, including faster rates of lactic acid buildup, reductions in blood oxygen saturation, and converse increases in blood carbon dioxide, due in part to a reduction in the amount of air that the lungs can expire. Even the ability of the body to cool itself during physical exertion through sweating – a critical part of peak performance – is impaired by sleep loss. (…) In the context of injury, there is no better risk-mitigating insurance policy for these investments than sleep.”
“Comparing the patterns of brain activity between the two conditions within the same individual, we discovered that supervisory regions in the prefrontal cortex required for thoughtful judgements and controlled decisions had been silenced in their activity by a lack of sleep. (…) The encouraging news is that getting enough sleep will help you control body weight. We found that a full night of sleep repairs the communication pathway between deep-brain areas that unleash hedonic desires and higher-order regions whose job it is to rein in these cravings. Ample sleep can therefore restore a system of impulse control within your brain, putting the appropriate brakes on potentially excessive eating.”
“The psychoanalytical method built on Freudian theory is nonscientific and holds no repeatable, reliable, or systematic power for decoding dreams. This, people must be made aware of.”