A Book Review: "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker
CW: Do not read if you have a newborn or new babe that doesn’t sleep. My second child didn’t really sleep until age 3 so I waited to read this book….for years.
Now you know. Let the review begin:
I found this book beyond fascinating, full of learnings and one of those books that changed my sleep habits immediately from how I go to sleep, how I wake up, how I talk about sleep and what I know about health. ‘Why We Sleep’ written by Matthew Walker is not only a book about sleep hygiene but also a book about our society, our education system, our immune system and solutions for the future.
And in a word, this book is intense. You cannot unlearn what you learn here (another warning).
His writing style reminds me of that of Michael Pollen, heavy on the research side with story telling and scientific insight. Might be one that is a great Audible as the text can get heady. I actually was able to skip around chapters to gauge my interest and where I wanted to learn more and I love how the author in the intro actually wants you to fall asleep while reading, made me laugh. Honestly, the book is essential, necessary, needed right now.
My greatest takeaways from this read:
1) Our sleep patterns directly impact our overall health, immunity and ability to be human. Sleep is where you digest emotions, sleep is where you retain information, sleep is where you heal and recover from the day prior.
2) There are morning people (larks) and night people (owls), it is real and I finally felt validated. Some people are not wired to wake up in the morning and do a ritual or start a work day or go to school before 8am. It is not in their wiring. Cough, me. I really should not be writing emails or be available for human interaction until about 9:30am - said it. And yet the 9-5 corporate structure or even the 730am school start structure is already set.
3) You know all those red flag memes? This book is the thrower of red flags when it comes to sleep disruptors like alcohol, blue light at night, waking up with your phone and not natural light and so many red flags when it comes to talking about pharmaceuticals (sleeping pills).
4) Do you know what a circadian rhythm is? Do you want to learn about your natural circadian rhythms, read this book.
5) Not to open a can of worms here but maybe a little peek inside the can, Matthew Walker talks about how sleep can impact the success rate of vaccines. He wrote it, I’m telling you - this book is massive.
6) Let’s talk sleep hygiene for a hot minute. There is a chapter and a full list of 12 sleep tips at the end that speak to the temp of your room, the darkness in your room (psst, should be dark AF), your bedtime and wake time (his most prominent tip, bedtime and wake time at the same time day in and day out is a game changer),
7) And then this quote: “the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life.” Okay.
Overall, I say read this book. So then we can talk about it. And then we can share how he watched TV before bed and feel weird because we know shouldn’t but last night, damn we just needed to. And how it creates this knowledge loop where you have choice but then you make a different choice. It is fun this experiment of life!