The notes below are designed to give prospective readers an idea of what to expect from the book, and to aid in making a decision on whether to buy it.
The Sleep Revolution:
Transforming your Life One Night at a Time
Arianna Huffington
Admitted this book is not about yoga, but it is about wellbeing. Also, my wife strongly recommends Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child by Dr. Max Weissnluth to prospective and current parents of young children.
Our current sleep crisis
Kids who get less sleep in middle and high school where schools start earlier are at much higher risk of depression, anxiety, and poor academic results.
Melatonin is released later in the evening in teens than in adults. Light from devices at night much worse for adolescents than adults.
Aetna offers free yoga and meditation class to employees and pays employees $25 per night of good sleep, up to $300 per year to encourage sleep.
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>40% of Americans get less than 7 hours of recommended sleep per night.
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>40% of Americans have not taken a single vacation day in the past year.
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>30% get under 6 hours a night.
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The average American sleeps less than 7 hours per night versus 8.5 hours 50 years ago.
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70% of Americans report getting insufficient sleep.
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Loss of sleep costs the average American $2,280 in lost productivity.
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We accomplish less because we tired even if we are at work longer.
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60% of people around the world have slept holding their mobile phones.
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Risk of heart attack is 2.6x higher with insufficient sleep and the risk of a stroke is 4x higher.
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Getting less than 4 hours of sleep a night leads to a 73% higher chance of being overweight due ghrelin, the hunger hormone, which goes down with sleep (and similar results for other homes such as leptin).
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Reducing sleep from 8 hours to 6 hours in a Swedish study increased fine lines by 45%.
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There are 328,000 drowsy driver accidents per year causing 6,400 deaths.
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Air traffic controllers average only 5.8 hours of sleep a night and only 3.25 hours a night when working overnight shifts.
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56% of errors by air traffic caused by fatigue.
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When Harvard Medical School interns work 5 nights shifts >24 hours in a month errors increased by 700% and patient deaths increased 300%.
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Childrens’ brain plasticity needs sleep.
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Death from overwork/lack of sleep has a name in Japanese (karoshi), Chinese (guolaosi), and Korean (gwarosa).
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Tokyo residents get an average of 5 hours, 45 minutes a night.
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Soul gets 6 hours, 3 minutes per night.
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Singapore/Las Vegas/Hong Kong all at 6 hours, 29 minutes.
We let our technology recharge but not our own brains.
Sleep keeps many parts of the brain feverishly busy.
The Sleep industry
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55 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were written in 2014 wort over $1bn.
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Over 9mn Americans use prescription sleeping pills.
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Women use them more often than men and frequency increases with age and education levels.
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First sleeping pill in 1903 was barbital, which had many fatal overdoses. Ambien is most common and 2/3rds of all US sleeping pill prescriptions. Pill label reads: “After taking Ambien, you may get out of bed while not being full awake and do activities that you do not know you are doing. The next morning, you may not remember that you did anything during the night….having sex while sleep walking…”’
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Those prescribed as few as 18 doses of sleeping pills a year had 3x higher risk of death “with greater morality associated with greater prescription dose.” The highest does levels also had a 35% higher risk of cancer.
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“Coffee breaks” were breaks to steep your soul, but now we don’t take a break at all.
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Coffee consumption increased during the Industrial Revolution and has fallen by half since 1940.
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Carbonated soda sales are now $77bn or 6x coffee sales at $13bn/year.
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ER visits for energy drinks have gone up from 10,068 in 2007 to 20,783 in 2011.
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1:10 visits required hospitalization.
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Energy drink users have lower brain plasticity. They get higher short-term productivity at the cost of long term creativity, adaptability, and intelligence.
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FOMO cultures.
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Teens with sleeping issues were 47% more likely to binge drink.
Sleep History
In Egypt and Greece people would spend the night in a sleep temple and have their dreams interpreted. Each had a god of sleep: Hypnos (Greek) and Somnus (Romans). Waking up at night between two sleep periods common in Odyssey and to tend fires in At Day’s Close.
Our ancestors had a more difficult time, farm animals often slept in the same room. No blackout curtains, no noise machines, no high-thread count sheets, etc.
Artificial light has disrupted sleep. First public candlelit lanterns came about in 1318. Artificial lights allowed the night to be colonized.
Sleep has become a sign of ‘unmanliness.’ Our Puritan work ethic has made sleep associated with laziness, which is not true.
Thomas Edison was convinced sleep was unnecessary. Trade unions moved from 12 hour work day to an 8-hour work day which helped reduce accidental deaths at the hands of machines.
Americans worked 163 more hours/year in 1987 versus 1969.
Science of Sleep:
Without sleep for over 48 hours most people become mean and abusive and then suffer from hallucinations and paranoia, then the body temperature starts to drop to induce sleep.
Sleep deprivation causes a rise in cortisol, the stress hormone, the next day. Sleep disturbances also interfere with our dopamine levels, increasing risk of bipolar disorder.
False memories are also associated with lack of sleep. Lack of sleep also causes changes in the expression of 700 genes and increases inflammation according to a UK study.
Sleep is essentially like bringing in the overnight cleaning crew to clear the toxic waste proteins that have accumulated between brain cells during the day.
As mice sleep, their brain cells become smaller, allowing the fluids to flow through and sweep away the toxic waste associated with Alzheimer’s.
Long-term lack of sleep results in a smaller brain, with 25% fewer neurons.
Sleep helps our memory, ability to learn, brain development and cleaning, appetite, immune function, and ageing.
Two systems:
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Our sleep/wake homeostasis.
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Circadian rhythm which corresponds to one day. The circadian rhythm comes from the hypothalamus (just above the optic nerve), which is the master clock and gets constant input from natural light.
4 stages of sleep:
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Light sleep, transition to sleep.
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Slightly deeper and stopping of eye movement and lower core temperature.
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Slow-wave deep sleep (delta sleep). It is our deepest phase and there are no eye movement. 50% of kids sleep talk during this phase and 5% of adults do too.
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REM sleep, which starts about 90 minutes after we fall asleep. This is when dreams occur. REM sleep helps us process emotional stress.
Those that get less than 7 hours of sleep have 3x the risk of a getting cold. Sleep efficiency or % of the night that you are asleep is an even stronger predictor than total sleep time.
Less sleep is also associated with higher risks of cancer, infertility, erectile disfunction, and lower resting metabolic rate.
One night’s poor sleep results in eating more fat the next day and staying up all night results in 1,000 calories being consumed overnight with no reduction in calories from the morning onward.
Less than 1% of the population has genetic mutations which result in them being ‘short sleepers’ and needing less sleep.
Sleep Disorders
25 million American have sleep apnea, which can last from a few seconds to several minutes and occur hundreds of times a night. Sleep apnea is linked with depression, cardiac problems, and weaker brain/blood barriers.
Only 15% of insomnia cases are not linked with another medical condition.
Dreams:
Sleep can be our primary pathway to other dimensions, other times, other parts of ourselves, and to access insights.
Freud thought dreams could access self-knowledge, and he believed the forgotten parts of dreams hold the key.
Carl Jung saw dreams not as repressions but as manifestations of the collective unconscious.
Dreams have inspired several scientific breakthroughs (e.g. Google came to Larry Page in a dream). In sleep, the river of waking opens into the sea of dreams.
In lucid dreaming we are aware of being in dreams.
Set a goal to remember your dream and write down what question(s) you want answered. Then go to sleep. When you wake up, take a few deep breaths, recall as much as you can of your dreams and write them down.
Mastering Sleep:
Learning how to deal with stress during the day will help us learn how to sleep.
We should not teach sleep as punishment to children.
Newborns need 14-17 hours of sleep, which becomes 10-13 hours by age 3-5, and 8-10 hours as a teenager, 7-9 hours for an adult, and 7-8 hours for those over 65.
Family Medical Leave Act allows for 12 weeks of unpaid leave for those in the public sector or with over 50 employees.
Small changes in school hours can have a big effect with 20% fewer health clinic visits by adjusting hours by less than an hour. Nap rooms are popular at UC Berkeley.
Sleeping together:
Women wake up more frequently when with a partner while men’s sleep habits do not change.
Women sleep better only if they had sex that night.
94% of couples who slept with bodies touching were happy with their relationship.
Women are more likely to have sex when well rested.
Snoring tells you something is going on, but it does not tell you what is going on.
45 million people snore but don’t have sleep apnea. Nasal strips and pillows don’t usually work, avoiding alcohol and adding a humidifier can help.
What to do and what not to do:
Light (especially blue light) lowers melatonin. Melatonin tells us to sleep.
Ideal sleeping temperature is between 60 and 66 degrees. > 75 degrees or < 54 degrees is especially disruptive.
After 4 months of exercise every day, most sleep 45 minutes more per night.
Caffeine/alcohol cycle so disruptive to sleep.
Tart cherry juice 2x a day for 2 weeks raised sleep by 85 minutes.
Avoid spicy foods.
93% of people report better sleep after acupuncture. Meditation also helps, cuts time to fall asleep by 50% after a six-week workshop.
Count slow, deep breaths. Imagine a calm lake. Imagine peace and serenity.
Lavender, Valerian room (via GABA).
“Sleep is the best meditation” The Dalai Lama
Before bed write down all the things you need to do and do a mind dump.Gratitude lists also help.
74% of Americans sleep in PJs, 8% naked. Naked sleeping releases oxytocin.
Naps and jet lag
Short naps prime our brain to function at a higher level.
45-minute naps lower blood pressure and increase your learning power.
Productivity increases more after nap than after a cup of coffee.
No food for 16 hours helps beat jetlag.
Fasting/feasting periods alternating for 4 days also helps, so does napping the day before a night flight.
If short trip may not make sense to adjust to the local time zone.
Work and Sleep
Sleep makes us better at our jobs.
13 million people work from home at least one day a week.
There are dangers to burnout.
Sleep improves decision-making at jobs.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Jeff Bezos both need 8 hours a night.
For actors, sleep improves appearances according to Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Issues in Washington DC have to do with lack of sleep and people on edge.
Difficult to sleep in hospitals. ICU noise at 85 decibels (higher than jackhammer or motorcycle) 16x/hour.
For athletes, the value of recovery is starting to be understood.
Cheetah sleeps 16 hours a night.
Stanford had athletes remain in bed 10 hours a night and free throw make percentages went up by 9, three-point shots went up over 9%.
Tom Brady goes to sleep at 9:30pm.
Manchester City soccer team has sleeping dorms for nights before games.
Athletes sleep schedule adjusted to make it 4pm in the afternoon at half time for peak results.
Other
43% have tracked workouts, 41% tracked diets but only 16% had tracked sleep.
Blue light very bad for sleep.
I believe I would have achieved the same amount but with more joy, more aliveness, and less cost to health and relationships via more sleep.
When we reclaim sleep, we reclaim what sleep has offered us throughout human history - a gateway to the sacred and life’s mysteries.