Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

by Matthew Walker

The physical and mental impairments caused by one night of bad sleep dwarf those caused by an equivalent absence of food or exercise.

please, feel free to ebb and flow into and out of consciousness during this entire book. I will take absolutely no offense. On the contrary, I would be delighted.

When a night owl is forced to wake up too early, their prefrontal cortex remains in a disabled, “offline” state.

Sadly, society treats night owls rather unfairly on two counts. 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.

the placebo effect is, after all, the most reliable effect in all of pharmacology.

More specifically, the coolheaded ability to regulate our emotions each day—a key to what we call emotional IQ—depends on getting sufficient REM sleep night after night.

Practice does not make perfect. It is practice, followed by a night of sleep, that leads to perfection.

After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail.

the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.

car crashes caused by drowsiness tend to be far more deadly than those caused by alcohol or drugs.

Studies of adolescents have identified a link between sleep disruption and suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and, tragically, suicide completion in the days after.

insufficient sleep during childhood significantly predicts early onset of drug and alcohol use in that same child during their later adolescent years,

“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”

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.

Sleep, and specifically REM sleep, was clearly needed in order for us to heal emotional wounds.

In doing so, Ambien-laced sleep became a memory eraser, rather than engraver.

Those taking sleeping pills were 4.6 times more likely to die over this short two-and-a-half-year period than those who were not using sleeping pills.