Why We Sleep Quotes

“Over a fourteen-year period, those sleeping six hours or less were 400 to 500 percent more likely to suffer one or more cardiac arrests than those sleeping more than six hours. I should note that in many of these studies, the relationship between short sleep and heart failure remains strong even after controlling for other known cardiac risk factors, such as smoking, physical activity, and body mass. A lack of sleep more than accomplishes its own, independent attack on the heart. As we approach”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“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.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Yet something even more profound has happened in this ongoing story of later school start times - something that researchers did not anticipate: the life expectancy of students increased. The leading cause of death among teenagers is road traffic accidents, and in this regard, even the slightest dose of insufficient sleep can have marked consequences, as we have discussed. When the Mahotomedi School District of Minnesota pushed their school start time from 7:30 to 8:00 a.m., there was a 60 percent reduction in traffic accidents in drivers sixteen to eighteen years of age.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“You may ask whether I have changed my own educational practice and assessment. I have. There are no “final” exams at the end of the semester in my classes. Instead, I split my courses up into thirds so that students only have to study a handful of lectures at a time. Furthermore, none of the exams are cumulative. It’s a tried-and-true effect in the psychology of memory, described as mass versus spaced learning. As with a fine-dining experience, it is far more preferable to separate the educational meal into smaller courses, with breaks in between to allow for digestion, rather than attempt to cram all of those informational calories down in one go. In”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“A meaningful, psychologically healthy life is an examined one, as Socrates so often declared.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“Indeed, journaling your waking thoughts, feelings, and concerns has a proven mental health benefit, and the same appears true of your dreams.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Why, then, would we expect sleep—and the twenty-five to thirty years, on average, it takes from our lives—to offer one function only?”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“First, after waking up in the morning, could you fall back asleep at ten or eleven a.m.? If the answer is “yes,” you are likely not getting sufficient sleep quantity and/or quality. Second, can you function optimally without caffeine before noon? If the answer is “no,” then you are most likely self-medicating your state of chronic sleep deprivation.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Feinberg’s study reminds me of a billboard advertisement I once saw from a large insurance firm, which read: “Why do most 16-year-olds drive like they’re missing part of their brain? Because they are.” It takes deep sleep, and developmental time, to accomplish the neural maturation that plugs this brain “gap” within the frontal lobe. When your children finally reach their mid-twenties and your car insurance premium drops, you can thank sleep for the savings.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“Most people think nothing of losing an hour of sleep for a single night, believing it to be trivial and inconsequential. It is anything but.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“As many have said about such stoic institutions: theories, beliefs, and practices die one generation at a time. But the conversation and battle must start somewhere.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“: “The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”VII”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Glib advice aside, what is the recommendation when it comes to sleep and alcohol? It is hard not to sound puritanical, but the evidence is so strong regarding alcohol’s harmful effects on sleep that to do otherwise would be doing you, and the science, a disservice. Many people enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, even an aperitif thereafter. But it takes your liver and kidneys many hours to degrade and excrete that alcohol, even if you are an individual with fast-acting enzymes for ethanol decomposition. Nightly alcohol will disrupt your sleep, and the annoying advice of abstinence is the best, and most honest, I can offer.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“neither naps nor caffeine can salvage more complex functions of the brain, including learning, memory, emotional stability, complex reasoning, or decision-making.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Place an organism under conditions of severe famine, and foraging for food will supersede sleep. Nourishment will, for a time, push aside the need for sleep, though it cannot be sustained for long. Starve a fly and it will stay awake longer, demonstrating a pattern of food-seeking behavior. The same is true for humans. Individuals who are deliberately fasting will sleep less as the brain is tricked into thinking that food has suddenly become scarce.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“...caffeine is a stimulant drug. Caffeine is also the only addictive substance that we readily give to our children and teens.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“More than a third of our brain is devoted to processing visual information, far exceeding that given over to sounds or smells, or those supporting language and movement.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Dreaming provides a unique suite of benefits to all species fortunate enough to experience it, humans included. Among these gifts are a consoling neurochemical bath that mollifies painful memories and a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Little wonder that sleep becomes nearly impossible to initiate or maintain when the spinning cogs of our emotional minds start churning, anxiously worrying about things we did today, things that we forgot to do, things that we must face in the coming days, and even those far in the future. That is no kind of invitation for beckoning the calm brainwaves of sleep into your brain, peacefully allowing you to drift off into a full night of restful slumber.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Slow rocking increased the depth of deep sleep, boosted the quality of slow brainwaves, and more than doubled the number of sleep spindles. It is not yet known whether these sway-induced sleep changes enhance memory, since the researchers did not perform any such tests with their participants. Nevertheless, the findings offer a scientific explanation for the ancient practice of rocking a child back and forth in one’s arms, or in a crib, inducing a deep sleep.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“sleep is “the chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“If you were one of the individuals who were obtaining just five to six hours each night or less, you were 200 to 300 percent more likely to suffer calcification of your coronary arteries over the next five years, relative to those individuals sleeping seven to eight hours.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Relevant from a prevention standpoint, insufficient sleep during childhood significantly predicts early onset of drug and alcohol use in that same child during their later adolescent years, even when controlling for other high-risk traits, such as anxiety, attention deficits, and parental history of drug use.VI You can now appreciate why the bidirectional, pendulum-like emotional liability caused by sleep deprivation is so concerning, rather than counter-balancing.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Perhaps you have also noticed a desire to eat more when you’re tired? This is no coincidence. Too little sleep swells concentrations of a hormone that makes you feel hungry while suppressing a companion hormone that otherwise signals food satisfaction.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Last night, you became flagrantly psychotic. It will happen again tonight. Before you reject this diagnosis, allow me to offer five justifying reasons. First, when you were dreaming last night, you started to see things that were not there—you were hallucinating. Second, you believed things that could not possibly be true—you were delusional. Third, you became confused about time, place, and person—you were disoriented. Fourth, you had extreme swings in your emotions—something psychiatrists call being affectively labile. Fifth (and how delightful!), you woke up this morning and forgot most, if not all, of this bizarre dream experience—you were suffering from amnesia. If you were to experience any of these symptoms while awake, you’d be seeking immediate psychological treatment. Yet for reasons that are only now becoming clear, the brain state called REM sleep and the mental experience that goes along with it, dreaming, are normal biological and psychological processes, and truly essential ones,”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

“Participants artificially awakened from sleep can experience a spike in blood pressure and an acceleration in heart rate caused by a burst of activity from the fight-or-flight branch of the nervous system.VI Most of us are unaware of another consequence of the alarm clock: the snooze button. The snooze feature means that you will repeatedly impose that cardiovascular spike again and again within a short span of time. Step and repeat this at least five days a week, and you begin to understand the possible consequences to your heart and nervous system across a life span.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“In response, I look intensely and knowingly at Kyle, having been nodding my head throughout his description. I pause, and then say, “I know exactly what your dream is about, Kyle.” Amazed, he (and the rest of the lecture hall) awaits, my answer as though time has ground to a halt. After another long pause, I confidently enunciate the following: “Your dream, Kyle, is about time, and more specifically, about not having enough time to do the things you really want to do in life.” A wave of recognition, almost relief, washes over Kyle’s face, and the rest of the class appear equally convinced. Then I come clean. “Kyle—I have a confession. No matter what dream anyone ever tells me, I always give them that very same generic response, and it always seems to fit.” Thankfully, Kyle is a good sport and takes this with no ill grace, laughing with the rest of the class. I apologize once again to him. The exercise, however, importantly reveals the dangers of generic interpretations that feel very personal and uniquely individual, yet scientifically hold no specificity whatsoever. I”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Human beings are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent gain.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams