Book: Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker, Scribner 2018
Book: Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker, Scribner 2018
This is the first book to be finished this summer. I grabbed it in part to combat the battle of the iPhone in my home at night but also in support of my own and my children’s need for sleep as they continue to have a start time most days shortly after 7:00 and my commute now has me out the door by 5:45 in order to save my daily workout, and home past 6 each night leaving me a bit over 3 hours at home each day if I am to get to sleep at a recommended time. Remarkably, the school district where I live instituted a late start two days a week, which I learned reading the book arguable is not better as there is no consistency to sleep schedule. Here are a few things that made it into Evernote from the book.
At a basic level, we need REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, in order to rest and recover. NREM essentially weeds out and removes unnecessary neural connections and REM strengthens neural connections. A disruption of either creates problems and the creative benefits of REM sleep are lost, and most significantly for adolescents the benefits of NREM to the developing brain are lost, and for them, higher rates of psychological issues are observed. Adolescent teens: circadian rhythms are different than that of their parents. Asking a teen to go to bed at 9 is like asking an adult to go to sleep at 7. They are wired to sleep at different times and require more sleep than their parents. It’s well supported that early school starts create issues for developing brains. A century ago, 95% of schools started around 9 a.m. and a nearly identical number of students could get they’re without the aid of an alarm clock.
Travelling eastward requires you to fall asleep earlier than normal, difficult to ask the brain to do. Travelling west, requires you to stay up later which is easier for the mind to grasp. Second, our natural circadian rhythm is innately longer than one day. It makes it somewhat easier to stretch a day than to shrink it.
I’ve always wondered why I’m sleepy until 11 and then I start to wake up again. 11 pm is when the greatest difference occurs between your sleep drive and your wake drive…. after that, I might make it out for the night.
Sleep loss causes obesity, sort of. We tend to eat poorly when we don’t sleep well.
A light at night, delays the release of melatonin. Even if it’s a little bed side lamp. reading on our iPads suppressed melatonin release by more than 50% at night….
Alcohol aided sleep fragments sleep, and, as such, causes non-continuous and thus non-restorative sleep.
Temperature: there remains most of the year, an inherent cooling of our bodies that happens at night; a bedroom temperature of around 65 degrees is regarded as ideal. Reducing your body’s temperature brings on sleep faster and more deeply.
I must admit, the toughest lines I read were avoid caffeine. Caffeine mutes the sleep signal of adenosine. It is the most abused psychoactive stimulant in the world. As a caffeine addict, a true lover of caffeine, I didn’t even get advice to avoid caffeine before bed as recommended for alcohol. No, clearly it says avoid caffeine. The masking of the body to the effects of adenosine are quite real. With certainty, I will explore reducing or, sigh, eliminating caffeine.