Why We Sleep
With two appearances on CBS This Morning and Fresh Air's most popular interview of 2017, Matthew Walker has made abundantly clear that sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive. Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity. In this “compelling and utterly convincing” (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his dec
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Why We Sleep
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
UC Berkeley sleep researcher Matthew Walker walks the general reader through twenty years of his lab work on sleep across four parts: what sleep is, why and how we sleep, the function of dreams and REM, and what happens when we do not sleep enough.
Yes. Statistician Alexey Guzey published a widely circulated critique in 2019 alleging factual errors. Walker has acknowledged some corrections but defends the book's central arguments.
He is a British neuroscientist and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Why We Sleep was written by Matthew Walker, published in 2017 by Pegasus.
Why We Sleep is 360 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Why We Sleep takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
Why We Sleep is a standalone novel by Matthew Walker, not part of a series.
Why We Sleep is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.