This should put you to sleep.

This week, I got done listening to Matthew Walker’s pioneering book Why We Sleep – The New Science of Sleep and Dreams. Describing the book as ground-breaking in the first sentence of a review is not conventional. Nevertheless, this would give you a sense of how awestruck I am after grasping the need of adequate sleep in our lives. Walker’s twenty-year old research into where humans must spend 33% of their lives is a calling need. Especially for the path of rapid development and industrialisation that humans have embarked upon in the last century. Yes, much has impacted us in the last century as compared to the preceding period.

Structures of sleep and mother nature

The author starts by elucidating the two key constituents of sleep – the circadian rhythm and our adenosine levels. He explains the role and impact of caffeine and jet-lags among flyers in suppressing melatonin release (hormone which cause sleep). He takes us through the more important structures of REM and NREM (Rapid Eye Movement and Non-Rapid Eye Movement) sleep waves, the pivotal function both play in our well-being at levels of psychology, health and so on. Walker takes us back to some first-principles of evolution, the analysis of sleep in different species, concept of USWS (Unihemispheric slow wave sleep) where one half of the brain sleeps while the other remains alert which aid birds to sleep in long migratory flights.

This section amazed me with nature’s engineering for sleep in species and the role they play. For eg:

1. The transition of the circadian rhythm from infants to children growing up in their teens and into adulthood. The circadian rhythm gets pushed back by an hour in teenagers which results in them going to bed later than they were as infants to bring a sense of independence in teenagers from the parents and sleep by themselves as deciphered by the author.
2. The role of REM sleep in memory consolidation in the hippocampus region of our brain. This allows us to transfer all our day’s learning from the frontal lobe of our brain to the server (hippocampus), thus aiding long term memory and the frontal lobe to be refreshed to absorb new learning for the next day, inciting creativity, thinking, behaviour and so on. This explains the forgetfulness or memory loss in individuals who are deprived of rich REM sleep with fragmented sleep patterns.
3. The design of half brain in birds who undertake long migratory flights and need to sleep even though while continuing with their flying to reach their destination.

This part will convince you that sleep with its intrinsic design is pivotal for our well-being and how we humans have constantly challenged (knowingly /unknowingly) the ethos of a sound and sufficient slumber at night.

Health risks and long-term implications of poor sleep

The next section delves into the risks and health issues manifesting through lack of sleep. I would seriously urge you to read / hear the book for a detailed understanding than comprehending otherwise through this blog. Nevertheless, I have listed a few points explained by the author that should raise concern among those having sleep issues or negating it wilfully. Here they go,

1. 3-year old kids with 10.5 hours of night sleep have a 45% chance of turning obese by the age of 7 as compared to have 12 hours of night sleep.
2. Adults who have an average sleep of 5:30 hours tend to lose 70% weight through muscle mass as compared to those who sleep for 8:30 hours and lose weight by burning more than 50% fat in an experiment conducted to check correlation in sleep and weight loss.
3. Short sleep results in increased appetite and consumption of high calorie food types, as it softens the supervisory control of the brain meant to restrict high calorie intake.
4. Low sleep impacts testosterone levels in young and average males causing them to age by 10-15 years in testosterone virility. Studies have shown such individuals have a 29% lower sperm count than the baseline statistics.
5. Routinely sleeping for 6 hours or less reduces follicular releasing hormone in women by 20% which is necessary for fertility.

The science of dreams

This piece of text in the script is what really stands out as the icing on the cake for me. The author has beautifully, yet scientifically researched and deduced the inception of dreams in our sleep. He raises critical points on the formation, the function and the interpretation of dreams in an individual. In the book, the author has also challenged the age-old understanding of dreams laid down by Sigmund Freud as the disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish. Dreams manifest in the REM stages of our sleep. Dreams help out in flushing the residual information stored in our memory by creating its own concepts and also by relating to our emotions and mental make-up. For eg: An extremely busy person pressed for time during the day, might have dreams of arriving late or missing a bus or train.

The functional aspect and beauty of dreams are that they help to flush out the painful memories making our brains more active, creative and positive. Norepinephrine – a brain chemical linked with stress are suppressed during the REM stage which allows the dream to transit without inciting an emotion. “The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day’s emotional experiences,” narrates Walker in the book. He further mentions, “By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope.” Proving the longstanding quote, “Time heals all wounds”.

This function unfortunately is deferred in patients suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorders) where it becomes difficult to release the pain during dream stage and explains their recurring trauma night after night.

Insomnia

Walker in the final section explains the type of insomniacs, challenges faced by insomniacs and what they can and must do to get out of the rut. It is pertinent to note the difference of an individual not willing to sleep but can get sleep vs the one wanting to sleep and yet is unable to do so. The latter is what defines an insomniac.

The author has vehemently denounced the use of LED lights in our homes, smartphones, TVs which are a major contributor in suppressing the release of melatonin into the brain and therefore holding us back from falling asleep. To this, solutions have been offered toward dim or mood lighting in the house and avoidance of all LED powered gadgets at least an hour before going to sleep.

The sleep economy and detox

After a thorough appraisal of sleep deficiency, the author juxtaposes on what the impact is on society at large apart from an individual. He contests the popular myth circulating in corporate corridors of less sleep leads to higher success, productivity and efficiency. Walker unearths an independent research by the RAND Corporation that has revealed an annual average loss of $2000 to an organization over one individual deprived of a healthy 8-hour sleep. This surmounts to a net loss of 54 million USD annually to a corporation and a 2% hit on the GDP to an entire nation. Likewise, it gives a careful narration on the impact of sleep deprivation to school going teens, medical staff and interns. This proves that governments and corporate bodies need to design smart and effective solutions into this large-scale epidemic for the betterment of society and urgently too.

In his final submission, Walker has not shied away from creating solutions to a dangerous societal menace. He has listed ideas that must be implemented at different tiers of society and not take sleep issues in isolation.

A thoroughly engaging, informative and implementable research that has been packed into a book by the author. Why We Sleep – The New Science of Sleep and Dreams cannot be ignored for its depth and severity to all of us.