Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

There are so many interesting, yet disturbing, facts (all backed by reliable studies) throughout this book that I can't fit into a review without quoting the entire book. It is an absolute must read for everyone. And I mean everyone - parents, teens, CEOs, government officials, artists, anxiety driven people, people with adhd - everyone.

Two things that stuck with me the most is sleep's correlation with autism and the impact of early school start times on crucial adolescent brain development. Although evidence of linkages between sleep and autism is very limited, and mainly correlative, the book provides enough to suggest some correlation and therefore an early diagnosis.

The second, is school timings. The circadian rhythm for early teens runs a few hours behind those of adults, which is they tend to stay up later at night. However, the ridiculously early school start times in most schools in the US disrupt the completion of their sleep cycle causing them to lose their REM sleep, which is crucial in the brain development of teens, particularly the increase in our ability to “recognise and therefore successfully navigate the kaleidoscope of socio=emotional signals that are abundant in human culture”. This topic is one I'm most concerned about considering kids are the future of our society, and our society ain't looking so good right now. It's insane to me to think about what society could've looked like if schools just let kids sleep longer. Maybe there would be more empathy in the world, less violence, less prejudice.

In his last chapter, Walker goes through his vision for sleep on different levels of society: Individual, educational, organisational, government, societal. Each of these areas are so well thought out and thought provoking, by looking into how advancements in technology can serve and improve sleep
on an individual level, how machine learning algorithms can assess an individual's sleep patterns and quality and adjust smart home tech to provide them with the best conditions for optimal sleep.

He further goes to suggest that long term highly accurate sleep tracking can be used predictively to show individuals increasing risk of conditions like Alzheimer's or cancer if they continue sleeping too little.

Overall, this is an incredibly informative book, very well laid out, well though out, backed by lots of studies, yet very accessible. I wish he explored the relationship between trauma and sleep more but I understand that's a whole other field of study that probably can't fit into a chapter.