Why We Sleep Quotes

“A delightful example is observed in infants abstracting complex grammatical rules in a language they must learn. Even eighteen-month-old babies have been shown to deduce high-level grammatical structure from novel languages they hear, but only after they have slept following the initial exposure. As you will recall, REM sleep is especially dominant during this early-life window, and it is that REM sleep that plays a critical role in the development of language, we believe. But that benefit extends beyond infancy—very similar results have been reported in adults who are required to learn new language and grammar structures.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Confirming the importance of the dream state, the better the quality of REM sleep from one individual to the next across that rested night, the more precise the tuning within the emotional decoding networks of the brain the next day. Through this platinum-grade nocturnal service, better REM-sleep quality at night provided superior comprehension of the social world the next day.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Deprive an individual of their REM-sleep dreaming state, and the emotional tuning curve of the brain loses its razor-sharp precision. Like viewing an image through frosted glass, or looking at an out-of-focus picture, a dream-starved brain cannot accurately decode facial expressions, which become distorted. You begin to mistake friends for foes.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Most compelling to me, however, were the repetitive nightmares reported in PTSD patients—a symptom so reliable that it forms part of the list of features required for a diagnosis of the condition. If the brain cannot divorce the emotion from memory across the first night following a trauma experience, the theory suggests that a repeat attempt of emotional memory stripping will occur on the second night, as the strength of the “emotional tag” associated with the memory remains too high. If the process fails a second time, the same attempt will continue to repeat the next night, and the next night, like a broken record. This was precisely what appeared to be happening with the recurring nightmares of the trauma experience in PTSD patients.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Already, we knew that the sleep, especially the REM sleep, of patients suffering from PTSD was disrupted. There was also evidence suggesting that PTSD patients had higher-than-normal levels of noradrenaline released by their nervous system. Building on our overnight therapy theory of REM-sleep dreaming and the emerging data that supported it, I wrote a follow-up theory, applying the model to PTSD. The theory proposed that a contributing mechanism underlying the PTSD is the excessively high levels of noradrenaline within the brain that blocks the ability of these patients from entering and maintaining normal REM-sleep dreaming. As a consequence, their brain at night cannot strip away the emotion from the trauma memory, since the stress chemical environment is too high.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“As the theory predicted, it was the dreaming state of REM sleep—and specific patterns of electrical activity that reflected the drop in stress-related brain chemistry during the dream state—that determined the success of overnight therapy from one individual to the next. It was not, therefore, time per se that healed all wounds, but instead it was time spent in dream sleep that was providing emotional convalescence. To sleep, perchance to heal.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“If this was proven, dreams could not be dismissed as an epiphenomenal by-product of REM sleep. Rather, science would have to recognize dreaming as an essential part of sleep and the adaptive advantages it supports, above and beyond REM sleep itself. Using this framework, we have found two core benefits of REM sleep. Both functional benefits require not just that you have REM sleep, but that you dream, and dream about specific things. REM sleep is necessary, but REM sleep alone is not sufficient. Dreams are not the heat of the lightbulb—they are no by-product.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“If there is a red-thread narrative that runs from our waking lives into our dreaming lives, it is that of emotional concerns. Counter to Freudian assumptions, Stickgold had shown that there is no censor, no veil, no disguise. Dream sources are transparent—clear enough for anyone to identify and recognize without the need for an interpreter.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“But Stickgold did find a strong and predictive daytime signal in the static of nighttime dream reports: emotions. Between 35 and 55 percent of emotional themes and concerns that participants were having while they were awake during the day powerfully and unambiguously resurfaced in the dreams they were having at night.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Unfortunately, the field of neuroscience was still in its infancy at the time. Science was simply not up to the task of deconstructing dreams, and so unscientific postulates such as Freud’s were inevitable. We should not blame him for that, but we should also not accept an unscientific explanation of dreams because of that.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“I am in no way suggesting that reviewing your dreams yourself, or sharing them with someone else, is a waste of time. On the contrary, I think it is a very helpful thing to do, as dreams do have a function, as we will read about in the next chapter. Indeed, journaling your waking thoughts, feelings, and concerns has a proven mental health benefit, and the same appears true of your dreams. A meaningful, psychologically healthy life is an examined one, as Socrates so often declared.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“When you are not getting enough sleep, the body becomes especially stingy about giving up fat. Instead, muscle mass is depleted while fat is retained. Lean and toned is unlikely to be the outcome of dieting when you are cutting sleep short. The latter is counterproductive of the former.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“The twenty-four-hour biological clock sitting in the middle of your brain is called the suprachiasmatic (pronounced soo-pra-kai-as-MAT-ik) nucleus. As with much of anatomical language, the name, while far from easy to pronounce, is instructional: supra, meaning above, and chiasm, meaning a crossing point. The crossing point is that of the optic nerves coming from your eyeballs. Those nerves meet in the middle of your brain, and then effectively switch sides. The suprachiasmatic nucleus is located just above this intersection for a good reason. It “samples” the light signal being sent from each eye along the optic nerves as they head toward the back of the brain for visual processing. The suprachiasmatic nucleus uses this”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“In other words, if you don’t sleep the very first night after learning, you lose the chance to consolidate those memories, even if you get lots of “catch-up” sleep thereafter. In terms of memory, then, sleep is not like the bank. You cannot accumulate a debt and hope to pay it off at a later point in time. Sleep for memory consolidation is an all-or-nothing event. It is a concerning result in our 24/7, hurry-up, don’t-wait society. I”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Had psychiatry got the causal direction wrong, and it was sleep disruption instigating mental illness, not the other way around? No, I believe that is equally inaccurate and reductionist to suggest. Instead, I firmly believe that sleep loss and mental illness is best described as a two-way street of interaction, with the flow of traffic being stronger in one direction or the other, depending on the disorder. I am not suggesting that all psychiatric conditions are caused by absent sleep. However, I am suggesting that sleep disruption remains a neglected factor contributing to the instigation and/or maintenance of numerous psychiatric illnesses, and has powerful diagnostic and therapeutic potential that we are yet to fully understand or make use of.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“However, a prevailing view in psychiatry has been that mental disorders cause sleep disruption—a one-way street of influence. Instead, we have demonstrated that otherwise healthy people can experience a neurological pattern of brain activity similar to that observed in many of these psychiatric conditions simply by having their sleep disrupted or blocked. Indeed, many of the brain regions commonly impacted by psychiatric mood disorders are the same regions that are involved in sleep regulation and impacted by sleep loss. Further, many of the genes that show abnormalities in psychiatric illnesses are the same genes that help control sleep and our circadian rhythms.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Considering how biologically damaging the state of wakefulness can often be, that is the true evolutionary puzzle here, not sleep. Adopt this perspective, and we can pose a very different theory: sleep was the first state of life on this planet, and it was from sleep that wakefulness emerged.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Routinely sleeping less than six hours a night weakens your immune system, substantially increasing your risk of certain forms of cancer. Insufficient sleep appears to be a key lifestyle factor linked to your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Craig Canapari. Craig is the Director of the Yale Pediatric Sleep Center and has superb resources for parents on his own website.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“For those seeking advice on sleep disorders, I recommend visiting the National Sleep Foundation website,I and there you will find resources on sleep centers near you.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“In closing, I offer a disclaimer. Should you feel drowsy and fall asleep while reading the book, unlike most authors, I will not be disheartened. Indeed, based on the topic and content of this book, I am actively going to encourage that kind of behavior from you.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“With chronic sleep restriction over months or years, an individual will actually acclimate to their impaired performance, lower alertness, and reduced energy levels. That low-level exhaustion becomes their accepted norm, or baseline. Individuals fail to recognize how their perennial state of sleep deficiency has come to compromise their mental aptitude and physical vitality, including the slow accumulation of ill health.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Ten days of six hours of sleep a night was all it took to become as impaired in performance as going without sleep for twenty-four hours straight. And”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“that after twenty-two hours without sleep, human performance is impaired to the same level as that of someone who is legally drunk.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“One of the most ironic statistics concerns drowsy driving. When a sleep-deprived resident finishes a long shift, such as a stint in the ER trying to save victims of car accidents, and then gets into their own car to drive home, their chances of being involved in a motor vehicle accident are increased by 168 percent because of fatigue.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“a new report has discovered that medical errors are the third-leading cause of death among Americans after heart attacks and cancer. Sleeplessness undoubtedly plays a role in those lives lost.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“The exhausting residency program, which persists in one form or another throughout all US medical schools to this day, has left countless patients hurt or dead in its wake—and likely residents, too.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Growing scientific evidence now supports the wisdom of later school start times.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Our children didn’t always go to school at this biologically unreasonable time. A century ago, schools in the US started at nine a.m. As a result, 95 percent of all children woke up without an alarm clock.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams