Why We Sleep Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

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Why We Sleep Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

Author: Matthew Walker

The first sleep book by a leading scientific expert—Professor Matthew Walker, Director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab—reveals his groundbreaking exploration of sleep, explaining how we can harness its transformative power to change our lives for the better.

Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don’t sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remained elusive.

An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. Within the brain, sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming mollifies painful memories and creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge to inspire creativity.

Walker answers important questions about sleep: how do caffeine and alcohol affect sleep? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? How do common sleep aids affect us and can they do long-term damage? Charting cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and synthesizing decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood, and energy levels; regulate hormones; prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes; slow the effects of aging; increase longevity; enhance the education and lifespan of our children, and boost the efficiency, success, and productivity of our businesses.

[highlight color=”green”]Goodreads users review :[/highlight]

Absolutely fantastic!! I enjoyed this so so so so so so so so much. There’s an incredible amount of research that has been done and that’s listed throughout this book and everything is explained so well and to the point, yet also detailed and focused on different topics about sleep throughout. And so incredibly interesting. It’s just so well done and I can’t praise it enough. I’m so happy and grateful I’ve read this and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone, it provides a really important message and there’s truly something for everyone and the way there are links and stuff to different resources to learn more about different distinct things is so amazing. All in all, I’m genuinely floored by how good this was. Please read this. ana ⚔                                                                                                    rated it: 5.0 from 5.0

“Sleep is nonnegotiable.” I love sleep, and I constantly find myself drawn to books on the topic. Not only was Why We Sleep was a thorough exploration of sleep and its many aspects, full of scientific fact, theory, and study, but it was also highly engaging. The audiobook narration was also spot on, making for an unputdownable reading experience. Highly recommended. Nicole Chinnici                                                                                         rated it: 5.0 from 5.0