Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

by Matthew Walker

punctuated by numerous awakenings, often vocal. There is no better or more humorous affirmation of this fact than the short book of lullabies, written by Adam Mansbach, entitled Go the F**k to Sleep.

What came spilling out onto the page was a comedic splash of rhymes he would fictitiously read to his daughter, the themes of which will immediately resonate with many new parents. “I’ll read you one very last book if you swear,/You’ll go the fuck to sleep.” (I implore you to listen to the audiobook version of the work, narrated to perfection by the sensational actor Samuel L. Jackson.)

and you find that those individuals who obtained less sleep in the preceding days are the same people who consistently select less challenging problems. They opt for the easy way out, generating fewer creative solutions in the process.

The irony that employees miss is that when you are not getting enough sleep, you work less productively and thus need to work longer to accomplish a goal. This means you often must work longer and later into the evening, arrive home later, go to bed later, and need to wake up earlier, creating a negative feedback loop.

Could you concentrate and learn anything after having forcefully been woken up at 3:15 a.m., day after day after day? Would you be in a cheerful mood? Would you find it easy to get along with your coworkers and conduct yourself with grace, tolerance, respect, and a pleasant demeanor? Of course not. Why, then, do we ask this of the millions of teenagers and children in industrialized nations? Surely this is not an optimal design of education. Nor does it bear any resemblance to a model for nurturing good physical or mental health in our children and teenagers.