Why We Sleep

First of all, a huge thank you to my friend Chris for giving this book to me as my birthday present! I think part of the reason why Chris might have given me this book is that I once told him that I wake up at 4:00 a.m. to exercise, and he wanted me to know how important sleep was. For some reason I feel like I have always known, at least through folklore, that sleep is important, but I am glad to have learnt more about the scientific reasons behind this belief, and more about sleep and dreams, in general.

  Yes, I highly recommend reading this book to anyone because I do believe that having a better sleep will dramatically improve our health, and will make us have a better life, in all aspects. Of course, as very well pointed out by the author himself: "Just as describing the scientific dangers of how eating junk food leads to obesity rarely ends up with people choosing broccoli over a cookie, knowledge alone is not enough" (Walker, M. Why We Sleep. p. 329. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Penguin Books, 2018).

  Indeed changing one's habits can be incredibly difficult. Fortunately for me, I think I have been trying much more consciously to change some of my habits, and I think it has gone well so far! I would like to believe that this book has helped me improve the quality of my sleep, and I think it can help many other people too.

  Despite my favourable opinion of this book, I must say I am still a bit skeptical about some of the results of the experiments that are described in the book. The results almost always seem to adhere very closely to the author's conjectures, and I wished I could see more of the statistical analyses that were done, as currently one might think that they might be too good to be true.