The Lowest-Hanging Longevity Fruit
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Book Review of “Why We Sleep”
Modernity conspires, in ways subtle and not-so-subtle to deprive you of the sleep you desperately need. Taking back the sleep you deserve is (perhaps) the most multiplicative of factors impacting your health, strength of mind, and ultimately longevity.
In this podcast, I thrust a phallus of fascinating factoids from “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker and break down the pragmatic takeaways from this book which is more for sleep scientists than sleep hackers.
Discussed…
5:58 This thing called sleep
11:22 Melatonin
16:36 Circadian biology
23:40 Why we dream
36:00 Dreams as “therapy”
37:45 Sleeping pills will kill you!
39:48 Sleep paralysis and aliens
40:07 Sickness vs sleep
46:10 Junk light vs sleep
51:55 The bad news about alcohol
58:00 Sleep hacks and tips
1:07:27 Society and sleep
From the concluding chapter of the book…
I believe it is time for us to reclaim our right to a full night of sleep, without embarrassment or the damaging stigma of laziness. In doing so, we can be reunited with that most powerful elixir of wellness and vitality, dispensed through every conceivable biological pathway. Then we may remember what it feels like to be truly awake during the day, infused with the very deepest plenitude of being.
“Why We Sleep” gets just three stars from me, despite being a well-written science book. I’d rather this have been two books, one delving deeply into the newest science of sleep and another all about the pragmatic lifehacks and tips for better sleep. I’m deducting two stars as it’s slow getting through those (sleep-inducing) early chapters about the biology of sleep and I would have like to have extracted more actionable takeaways from the book’s nearly 400 pages.
You might get more practical tips for improving your slumber from the chapter on Biohacking Sleep with Lighting, Beverages, and Mindset in my lifehacking manifesto, audio chapter here…
