Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is one of those books I think most people in the United States could gain a lot from reading. Walker is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley, and his core argument is simple: sleep is not optional. Almost every system in your body, your brain, your heart, your immune system, your metabolism, your mood, your memory, degrades when you cut sleep short. And these days a lot of us are cutting it short.

What makes the book hit is that Walker is not pitching sleep as a wellness fad. He is presenting decades of research showing that if you consistently sleep less than seven hours, you are quietly compounding damage across nearly every measure of health and performance that you care about.

I am not going to get too deep here because I wrote a full blog post on this book based on a talk I gave at SEP. That post is the better place to find my specific takeaways and what changed for me after reading it. You can find it here.

One thing worth flagging if you do pick up the book. Why We Sleep has drawn legitimate criticism from researchers, most notably Alexey Guzey, who pointed out factual errors and overstated claims in some specific sections. Walker has acknowledged some of these and corrections have been issued.

Nevertheless, the bigger picture argument that sleep matters more than most people give it credit for is well supported by the broader literature. Just read it like you should read any popular science book, with a healthy curiosity about the specific numbers and a willingness to check the ones that sound too dramatic to be true.

Sleep is one of the best and most underrated investments you can make in yourself. Give the book a read and you will really understand why.