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A book which is so interesting that it made me sleep — A summary on Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep.

I am not a prolific fast-paced book reader, in fact, I am the slowest reader that I know. But I make sure that I pick only the book that I find really interesting so that I finish the book.

“Why We Sleep” by sleep scientist Matthew Walker is the 18th and the latest one that I just wrapped up reading. I never usually review any books or do anything of that manner, but this book gave me a new purpose: to spread the importance of sleep which is being neglected in the modern world. Hence, this is not a review of the book, but I am just aggregating some points that struck me about sleep while reading the book that I personally think more people should be made aware of.

I will not be explaining the below-mentioned topics in detail but will try to give links to trusted sources if you’d like to learn in-depth about them.

1) Sleep & Evolution

There is one thing common in all discovered living species: One way or the other, they all sleep. Humans spent almost 1/3 rd of the time they live sleeping. But when a creature is asleep it is the most vulnerable (to predators), yet mother nature has made sure that sleep was never thrown out of the window during the process of natural selection which is the backbone of evolution. This means that the importance or benefits of sleep by far outweighs the vulnerability it creates. Read more: Why Did Sleep Evolve?

2) Two Factors That Determine Sleep

The two main factors that drive sleep are sleep pressure & Circadian rhythm.

Sleep pressure: The more time you’re awake there is a proportional build-up of a brain hormone known as adenosine. The more adenosine you have in your brain, the more “Sleep pressure” you feel. To remove the sleep pressure you have to sleep, during which the hormone will be cleared out of the brain. The less adenosine you have, the more urgent we feel to be awake. The more adenosine, the more urge to sleep.

Circadian rhythm: There is a biological clock in your brain that completes its cycle every 24 hours. It helps us to go to bed at night, wake up in the morning even if we aren’t exposed to sunlight or any timekeeping. This rhythm which helps us in setting our daily habits is known as Circadian rhythm. Normally from 11 pm to 7 am, the circadian rhythm urges us to sleep & the vice versa from 7 am to 11 pm.

The graph below shows how the combination of both sleep pressure & circadian rhythm functions in producing sleep:

3) Different Stages of Sleep

There are two main stages in sleep: NREM & REM sleep.

NREM sleep or non-rapid eye movement sleep (Deep sleep): This stage of sleep is where major time (almost 80%) is spent during sleep. From the book what I understand as the main purpose of the stage is to transfer temporary memory that we learned during the day to the more permanent storage part of the brain. That is, in computer terms, to transfer data from a small storage disk like a Pendrive to any secondary storage devices. This is why having quality sleep is crucial for retaining important facts & figures.

REM sleep or rapid eye movement sleep: Just like the name suggests, it is during this stage that we move our eyes rapidly in random directions. Matt Walker strongly advocates to never skip REM sleep which is mainly performed after 5 am since it is crucial in developing an emotional & creative connection on the facts that we have learned. That means REM sleep is what produces creativity. It is at this stage that we dream, hence all the voluntary muscles will be paralysed by the brain to avoid injuring ourselves by performing the actions that we perceive in dreams. It is the malfunction of this paralyzing activity that leads to the frightening “Sleep paralysis”.

4) Purpose of Dreams

Scientists have not yet fully demystified the reason behind why we dream. It was long thought that dreaming is an epiphenomenon of sleep, just like the heat produced by a bulb — producing heat is not the aim of the bulb, but it is an epiphenomenon while producing light.

But Matt Walker argues (data collected from his own research) that dreams exist for serving a particular function — to help give emotional stability. He suggests that dreams help us disconnects the link between any particular tragic event to our emotional mind. That means every time we dream about any negative events that we experienced recently, it decreases the emotional trauma that accompanies with it.

Read more: Dreaming is like overnight therapy

5) Other Benefits of Sleep

The book guides us through several other benefits of sleep which has in-depth scientific backings. I will here list only the benefits that I thought was surprising to know:

a) It makes you look better

b) Reduces your weight

c) Makes you more creative

d) Improves your immunity

e) Helps in preventing Alzheimer’s

f) Helps in preventing depression

g) Improves your memory

h) Improves your morality & empathy

6) How the World is Neglecting the Importance of Sleep

The prime example of how the mass is naive about the importance of sleep that Matt Walker points out is how the school timings are structured. Most of the young adolescents need sufficient REM sleep in order to posture the much-needed early-stage brain development. But in contrast to the fact, early school timings force young students to lose this important REM sleep. Matt Walker urges us to join his movement to make the authorities aware of the importance of sleep so as to make school timings in a manner that gives the young lads enough time to indulge in the much-needed REM sleep.

I do not have any background of anatomy other than having a curious mind on anything biology. Still, the book is written with such care that I could understand probably everything in it. Matt has spent a lot of energy in making sure that the reader gets the context of what he is trying to explain before venturing into the detailed science of things.

Also, the answer to “How much time do you need to sleep?” is 8 hours. You can buy the book here. And that’s a wrap.

Thanks for reading :)

[About the author: Jaison Thomas is an Entrepreneur, Speaker & Writer. He co-founded the digital marketing agency, Blusteak.]

This was posted originally here.