Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

by Matthew Walker

It is time to call the race of sleep over and allow active wakefulness to return for the rest of the day. In this regard, we human beings are “solar powered.”

What if sleep is so useful—so physiologically beneficial to every aspect of our being—that the real question is: Why did life ever bother to wake up? Considering how biologically damaging the state of wakefulness can often be, that is the true evolutionary puzzle here, not sleep.

After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

That's good.

We are, as you will see, socially, organizationally, economically, physically, behaviorally, nutritionally, linguistically, cognitively, and emotionally dependent upon sleep.