BOOK REVIEW

Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker

Only the sleep-fascinated should invest in a cover to cover read; others are advised to watch the TED talk

  My past relationship with sleep could be fairly characterized as strained, especially during my twenties as I often pushed myself to work deep into the night and accomplish ever more with each 24-hour cycle. Indeed, during a short phase of attempted emancipation from what I perceived as animalistic needs, one effort was to actively try to wean off sleep and reduce my nightly coma to a nap of no more than three or four hours. This misguided lunacy had been inspired by a friend’s military training and thankfully a scolding from another trusted companion put an end to the idea after just a few weeks.

  Age brought along a healthier appreciation of sleep’s value as well as an obdurately growing dependence on it for optimal function (this had not always felt the case). I hoped that Why We Sleep would expound the benefits of sleeping and propel me to incorporate better lifelong sleeping habits. As Walker despairs, it is appalling that we teach children about diet, safe sex, exercise and intoxicants and yet sleep is awarded almost no educational focus. The consequence of this worrying gap in curricula is underscored in that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called insufficient sleep a public health epidemic.

  Walker aims to single-handedly remediate that problem in his book. Why We Sleep is a meticulous show-and-tell job of all the research around sleep and its many facets. For those considering this read, a prefacing remark that Walker is a research scientist and despite what I assume to be the best efforts of his editor, many chapters bear the scientific mark, overdosing on detail. This is least true as Walker introduces contextual background, such as the evolutionary benefit of sleep and how sleep patterns of homo sapiens compare to that of other animals. However, as the book then weaves through the anticipated explanations of the significance of dreams, the function of REM versus NREM sleep and how caffeine and alcohol inhibit sleep’s restorative processes, many sections get bogged down as smaller points are exhaustingly stretched across pages.

  Sleep’s contribution to our wellbeing is endless according to Walker, but in constantly placing sleep on a higher pedestal than seemingly any other bodily function his words can come off as almost puritanical. The value of sleep is repeated and rephrased like the constant hum of an industrial refrigerator.

  This is not to say the book is ineffective in associating sleep with benefits such as information retention or the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Rather, the forcefulness of the arguments birth the natural question of exactly how much sleep can be credited for, say, extending one’s life span. There are also occasional missteps, like when Walker references how REM sleep helped Dmitri Mendeleev dream up the periodic table of elements – but only after three sleepless nights, for which Walker would never advocate, I assume.

  If my inbound objective was an understanding of sleep’s myriad benefits, I received a stacked plateful of assertions and accompanying evidence, but they were often overcooked, scuppering much of my potential enjoyment. I do now feel compelled to prioritize sleep as a health instrument and implement some of Walker’s closing tips list; however, the unfortunate and ironic truth is that this book acted as a literal sleep aid for me many times while reading it.      

-NP, September 2021