Book Rec: Why We Sleep
While writing my last post on the sanctity of sleep, I kept bumping into the work of a neuroscientist named Matthew Walker. Walker is a self-proclaimed “sleep diplomat.” His offerings, which all expound the MANY benefits of sleep, include a website, a podcast, a MasterClass, and a bestselling book titled Why We Sleep.
I love Why We Sleep and I’m betting that you will too. It’s highly digestible and fascinating, and it will leave you with both a better understanding of sleep and a fuller appreciation for the massive impact it has on our health and society.
Here’s a quick summary of its contents: In part 1 of the book, Walker teaches sleep basics (e.g, the different phases of sleep, how sleep is regulated). In part 2, he explains the connections between sleep deficiency and a massive assortment of physical and mental issues, including reduced lifespan, accelerated aging, impaired mental functioning (e.g., memory, productivity, concentration, creativity), emotional instability, foul mood, feeble physical performance, reduced reproductive vigor, increased risk for mental illnesses (e.g., anxiety, depression, bipolar, stroke, chronic pain) and lifestyle diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s, heart disease, diabetes, obesity), and weakened immune system (which increases our susceptibility to infections and cancers). You know, just to name a few. Part 3 is about the function of dreams. And Part 4 discusses the causes of sleep deficiency and offers some inspiring ideas for improving society via sleep (e.g., pushing back school start times to boost learning).
No matter who you are, whether you’re a long-time sleep believer or a sleep skeptic, I urge you to read this book and give Walker a chance to wow you. It’s got a little something for everyone.
For self-improvement junkies: This book offers lots of ideas for upping your sleep game. Walker discusses at length the need for darkness and cool temps to trigger the release of melatonin at night and thereby promote sleep. He also takes a hard stand against nightcaps and caffeine (pinning caffeine as the the most common culprit for shit sleep), and he features and provides commentary on the 12 sleep tips offered by the NIH in Your Guide to Healthy Sleep (see page 4). Note: Of these tips, Walker claims that #1 (i.e., going to bed and waking up at the same time every day) is the single most effective way to improve your sleep.
For wound-the-fuck-up people: As Walker points out throughout the book, one of the mechanisms by which sleep deficiency wreaks havoc on our bodies is via overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The SNS is the part of the nervous system that’s responsible for activating the “flight-or-fight” response. As part of this response, the adrenal glands release cortisol, which (1) increases your heart rate and blood pressure, (2) suppresses your immune system, and (3) suppresses digestion. Thus, when you are chronically sleep deprived, your SNS is chronically overactivated, and you are gradually increasing your risk for (1) heart disease, (2) cancer and infections, and (3) a variety of digestive symptoms, including constipation, gut dysbiosis (i.e., a shitty gut microbiome), and leaky gut. SNS overactivation can cause insomnia - it’s hard to sleep when you have cortisol pumping through your body and lighting up the “vigilance centers” of your brain. Thus, sleep deficiency and SNS overactivation can create a vicious cycle of being underslept and wound-the-fuck-up that can have dire health consequences. As Walker notes in the book, the most common triggers of insomnia are worry, anxiety, and emotional distress, which nicely highlights the importance of chilling out and feeling your feelings before your head hits your pillow at night.
For MBS sufferers: This book references one of Walker’s research papers (Krause, 2019) that demonstrates that people are more sensitive to pain when sleep deprived. In that paper, the authors conclude that “even modest nightly changes in sleep quality…within an individual determine consequential day-to-day changes in experienced pain”. I think this finding points to an excellent MBS treatment strategy: improve your sleep to tame your pain. The best part of this strategy is that, because our sleep is so very foundational to our health, any effort that we put into improving it will have global benefits, reducing our risk for MBS symptoms and a plethora of serious diseases alike.
SWEET DREAMS!
