Why We Sleep Quotes

“human and financial alike. So much so that the Centers for Disease Control declared insufficient sleep as a public health epidemic.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“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

“Then we turn to how and why a lack of sufficient sleep”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“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

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

“Caffeine has an average half-life of five to seven hours. Let’s say that you have a cup of coffee after your evening dinner, around 7:30 p.m. This means that by 1:30 a.m., 50 percent of that caffeine may still be active and circulating”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“First, the eastward direction requires that you fall asleep earlier than you would normally, which is a tall biological order for the mind to simply will into action. In contrast, the westward direction requires you to stay up later, which is a consciously and pragmatically easier prospect.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“we have preliminary research findings from several NICUs that have implemented dim-lighting conditions during the day and near-blackout conditions at night. Under these conditions, infant sleep stability, time, and quality all improved. Consequentially, marked and significant improvements in neonate weight gain and significantly higher oxygen saturation levels in blood were observed, relative to those preterms who did not have their sleep prioritized and thus regularized. Better still, these well-slept preterm babies were also discharged from the hospital several weeks earlier!”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“We can now saturate our indoor environments with powerful blue light that shuts off any lingering melatonin. This will help us wake up faster, more alert, and with a brighter mood, morning after morning.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“intriguing result: in the days after a supervisor had slept poorly, the employees themselves, even if well rested, became less engaged in their jobs throughout that day as a consequence. It was a chain-reaction effect, one in which the lack of sleep in that one superordinate person in a business structure was transmitted on like a virus, infecting even well-rested employees with work disengagement and reduced productivity.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“The two most common triggers of chronic insomnia are psychological: (1) emotional concerns, or worry, and (2) emotional distress, or anxiety. In this fast-paced, information-overloaded modern world, one of the few times that we stop our persistent informational consumption and inwardly reflect is when our heads hit the pillow.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Emerging from this research renaissance is an unequivocal message: sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day—Mother Nature’s best effort yet at contra-death.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“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

“There does not seem to be one major organ within the body, or process within the brain, that isn’t optimally enhanced by sleep (and detrimentally impaired when we don’t get enough).”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“It is important to note, however, that regardless of the amount of recovery opportunity, the brain never comes close to getting back all the sleep it has lost. This is true for total sleep time, just as it is for NREM sleep and for REM sleep. That humans (and all other species) can never “sleep back” that which we have previously lost is one of the most important take-homes of this book, the consequences of which I will describe in chapters 7 and 8.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Although the mechanisms by which sleep deprivation degrades cardiovascular health are numerous, they all appear to cluster around a common culprit, called the sympathetic nervous system. Abandon any thoughts of love or serene compassion based on the misguiding name.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“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: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“The scientific evidence linking disrupted sleep-wake rhythms and cancer is now so damning that the World Health Organization has officially classified nighttime shift work as a “probable carcinogen.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Epidemiological studies have established that people who sleep less are the same individuals who are more likely to be overweight or obese.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“similar relationship was observed in a Japanese study of 2,282 male workers. Over a fourteen-year period, sleeping less than six hours a night was associated with more than a three times greater risk of suffering a cardiovascular or coronary event,”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“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

“In the year before this time change, the average verbal SAT scores of the top-performing students was a very respectable 605. The following year, after switching to an 8:30 a.m. start time, that score rose to an average 761 for the same top-tier bracket of students. Math SAT scores also improved, increasing from an average of 683 in the year prior to the time change, to 739 in the year after. Add this all up, and you see that investing in delaying school start times—allowing students more sleep and better alignment with their unchangeable biological rhythms—returned a net SAT profit of 212 points. That improvement will change which tier of university those teenagers go to, potentially altering their subsequent life trajectories as a consequence.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Controlled sleep laboratory studies in smaller samples show that children with longer total sleep times develop superior IQ, with brighter children having consistently slept forty to fifty minutes more than those who went on to develop a lower IQ.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“The fact of the matter is that most people will trade sleep for a higher salary. A recent study from Cornell University surveyed hundreds of US workers and gave them a choice between either (1) $80,000 a year, working normal work hours, and getting the chance for around eight hours of sleep, or (2) $140,000 a year, working consistent overtime shifts, and only getting six hours of sleep each night. Unfortunately, the majority of individuals went with the second option of a higher salary and shorter sleep. That’s ironic, considering that you can have both, as we have discovered above.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“A bedroom temperature of around 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3°C) is a reasonable goal for the sleep of most people, assuming standard bedding and clothing. This surprises many, as it sounds just a little too cold for comfort.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“However, this argument makes the erroneous assumption that we have stopped evolving. It is possible that lucid dreamers represent the next iteration in Homo sapiens’ evolution. Will these individuals be preferentially selected for in the future, in part on the basis of this unusual dreaming ability—one that may allow them to turn the creative problem-solving spotlight of dreaming on the waking challenges faced by themselves or the human race, and advantageously harness its power more deliberately?”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“I was once fond of saying, “Sleep is the third pillar of good health, alongside diet and exercise.” I have changed my tune. Sleep is more than a pillar; it is the foundation on which the other two health bastions sit. Take away the bedrock of sleep, or weaken it just a little, and careful eating or physical exercise become less than effective, as we shall see.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM sleep that we know of. We will discuss the reason that alcohol blocks REM-sleep generation, and the consequences of that sleep disruption in adults, in later chapters.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Sleep is constantly modifying the information architecture of the brain at night. Even daytime naps as short as twenty minutes can offer a memory consolidation advantage, so long as they contain enough NREM sleep.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“if you were a participant in such a study, and the only information I had was the amount of deep NREM sleep you had obtained that night, I could predict with high accuracy how much you would remember in the upcoming memory test upon awakening, even before you took it.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams