Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

by Matthew Walker

the development cost of each lightbulb was in the neighborhood of $300,000.

Across a semester of lectures, the amount of sleep they report getting increases by forty-two minutes per night on average.

If workers string together twenty seven-hour nights of sleep or more in a row, they receive a twenty-five-dollar-per-night bonus, for a (capped) total of five hundred dollars.

sleep continuity—consistently getting seven to nine hours of sleep opportunity each night, every night, without running a debt during the week and hoping to pay it off by binge-sleeping at the weekend—is just as important as total sleep time if you are to receive

50 to 80 percent of all intensive care alarms may be unnecessary or ignorable by staff.

we have discovered that pain-related centers within the human brain are 42 percent more sensitive to unpleasant thermal stimulation (non-damaging, of course) following a night of sleep deprivation, relative to a full, healthy eight-hour night of sleep.

At this premature stage of life, infants should be sleeping the vast majority of the time, both day and night.

we have preliminary research findings from several NICUs that have implemented dim-lighting conditions during the day and near-blackout conditions at night.

these well-slept preterm babies were also discharged from the hospital several weeks earlier!

Even something as simple as bathing a young child at the right time before bed (rather than in the middle of the night, as I’ve seen occur) would help foster, rather than perturb, good sleep.

drowsy driving is responsible for more accidents than either of these two issues—and is more deadly.

This silent sleep loss epidemic is one of the new public health challenges we face in the twenty-first century in developed nations.

Twelve Tips for Healthy Sleep*

Stick to a sleep schedule.

Avoid caffeine and nicotine.

caffeine, and its effects can take as long as eight hours to wear off fully.

Don’t lie in bed awake.