Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
[The following review is too credulous: I wrote it before it became clear that the book is at best a noble-lie exaggeration and at worst statistical fraud with unjustified practical claims. Downgrade your credence in all nonfiction that's outside your expertise, including reviews like this one.]
Walker:
Important topic: he claims there's a free, riskless intervention to add years to your lifespan and fundamentally improve your mind. (The flip side of this claim is a horror story about a society that mentally disables its members.)
Our school system, ladies and gents:
And elsewhere he notes that time in school is useless without restfulness. Burn it down.
The theory of sleep (circadian rhythm and adenosine cycle determining when, NREM and REM determining what) is very neat but I'm not qualified to say if it's mature. There's also vast and baffling cross-species variation, which Walker doesn't pretend to understand: "amount (e.g., [hours per day]), form (e.g., half-brain, whole-brain), and pattern (monophasic, biphasic, polyphasic)" or ground / tree.
The adenosine cycle - the absolutely failsafe connection between activity and fatigue - is one of my favourite theories in biology. (The account here doesn't do it justice.)
He's sceptical of oral melatonin therapy, but he doesn't consider the main argument in favour, which is that our many hours of blue-light at night is a systematic deviation from ancestral conditions, with no sensible alternative mitigation (f.lux can only do so much). (He instead puts faith in warm LEDs and smart bulbs, currently thousands of dollars each.) At least he doesn't spread the unsupported idea that taking it results in negative hormonal feedback. This doesn't surprise me:
- but this is the price of having it over-the-counter in the first place. (It is anyway completely safe to take a 6x dose, just much less effective.)
He's very in favour of afternoon naps, the "biphasic" pattern, based on relatively weak observational evidence:
There's lots of evolutionary speculation, which really pisses off some readers for some reason, even when tagged as speculation. (e.g. Do teenagers stay up later to procreate outwith parental supervision?)
He is a crusader all right - for instance, he doesn't really do any cost-benefit consideration, instead just maximising sleep, even instead of taking your asthma meds. Yes, the costs of sleep deprivation are extremely high - but so's the cost of spending 30 years in a coma.
I think I'm pretty much optimised: I already quit caffeine, redshifted all screens, got 0.3mg melatonin, started wearing an eye mask, don't drink much, exercise every day, fixed a bedtime, and live somewhere quiet with big bedroom windows. (I also got a less melodramatic and anxious worldview by studying economic history, which Walker doesn't cover - fair enough, since the intervention can only help scared intellectuals.) Things which I enjoy enough to handle the sleep cost: nicotine and eating late.
Walker:
Scientists have discovered a revolutionary treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious. Are you interested?
Important topic: he claims there's a free, riskless intervention to add years to your lifespan and fundamentally improve your mind. (The flip side of this claim is a horror story about a society that mentally disables its members.)
Our school system, ladies and gents:
More than 80 percent of public high schools in the United States begin before 8:15 a.m. Almost 50 percent of those start before 7:20 a.m. School buses for a 7:20 a.m. start time usually begin picking up kids at around 5:45 a.m. As a result, some children and teenagers must wake up at 5:30 a.m., 5:15 a.m., or even earlier, and do so five days out of every seven, for years on end. This is lunacy...
Previously, we noted that the circadian rhythm of teenagers shifts forward dramatically by one to three hours. So really the question I should ask you, if you are an adult, is this: Could you concentrate and learn anything after having forcefully been woken up at 3:15 a.m., day after day after day? Would you be in a cheerful mood? Would you find it easy to get along with your coworkers and conduct yourself with grace, tolerance, respect, and a pleasant demeanor? Of course not. Why, then, do we ask this of the millions of teenagers and children in industrialized nations?
And elsewhere he notes that time in school is useless without restfulness. Burn it down.
Insufficient sleep has also been linked to aggression, bullying, and behavioral problems in children across a range of ages. A similar relationship between a lack of sleep and violence has been observed in adult prison populations; places that, I should add, are woefully poor at enabling good sleep that could reduce aggression, violence, psychiatric disturbance, and suicide
The theory of sleep (circadian rhythm and adenosine cycle determining when, NREM and REM determining what) is very neat but I'm not qualified to say if it's mature. There's also vast and baffling cross-species variation, which Walker doesn't pretend to understand: "amount (e.g., [hours per day]), form (e.g., half-brain, whole-brain), and pattern (monophasic, biphasic, polyphasic)" or ground / tree.
The adenosine cycle - the absolutely failsafe connection between activity and fatigue - is one of my favourite theories in biology. (The account here doesn't do it justice.)
He's sceptical of oral melatonin therapy, but he doesn't consider the main argument in favour, which is that our many hours of blue-light at night is a systematic deviation from ancestral conditions, with no sensible alternative mitigation (f.lux can only do so much). (He instead puts faith in warm LEDs and smart bulbs, currently thousands of dollars each.) At least he doesn't spread the unsupported idea that taking it results in negative hormonal feedback. This doesn't surprise me:
Scientific evaluations of over-the-counter brands have found melatonin concentrations that range from 83 percent less than that claimed on the label, to 478 percent more than that stated
- but this is the price of having it over-the-counter in the first place. (It is anyway completely safe to take a 6x dose, just much less effective.)
He's very in favour of afternoon naps, the "biphasic" pattern, based on relatively weak observational evidence:
those that abandoned regular siestas went on to suffer a 37 percent increased risk of death from heart disease across the six-year period, relative to those who maintained regular daytime naps."
There's lots of evolutionary speculation, which really pisses off some readers for some reason, even when tagged as speculation. (e.g. Do teenagers stay up later to procreate outwith parental supervision?)
He is a crusader all right - for instance, he doesn't really do any cost-benefit consideration, instead just maximising sleep, even instead of taking your asthma meds. Yes, the costs of sleep deprivation are extremely high - but so's the cost of spending 30 years in a coma.
I think I'm pretty much optimised: I already quit caffeine, redshifted all screens, got 0.3mg melatonin, started wearing an eye mask, don't drink much, exercise every day, fixed a bedtime, and live somewhere quiet with big bedroom windows. (I also got a less melodramatic and anxious worldview by studying economic history, which Walker doesn't cover - fair enough, since the intervention can only help scared intellectuals.) Things which I enjoy enough to handle the sleep cost: nicotine and eating late.
Twelve Tips for Healthy Sleep:
1. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day.
2. Exercise is great, but not too late in the day.
3. Avoid caffeine and nicotine.
4. Avoid alcoholic drinks before bed.
5. Avoid large meals and beverages late at night.
6. If possible, avoid medicines that delay or disrupt your sleep.
7. Don’t take naps after 3 p.m.
8. Relax before bed... reading or listening to music, should be part of your bedtime ritual.
9. Take a hot bath before bed.
10. Dark bedroom, cool bedroom, gadget-free bedroom.
11. Have the right sunlight exposure. Try to get outside in natural sunlight for at least thirty minutes each day.
12. Don’t lie in bed awake... get up and do some relaxing activity until you feel sleepy.