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" I think we perhaps are, with sleep, where we were with smoking about 50 years ago, in that we had all of the science, and it was right there for the public discussion, but it's not yet adequately sort of percolated out into policy or even just public wisdom. "

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" The fact that we don't have that biologic pressure to have highly polyphasic sleep, I think, probably tells us something in terms of, truly, whether it's useful or not. "

Matthew Walker

Useful

Fact

" Sleep is Mother Nature's best effort yet to counter death. "

" We know that efficiency and effectiveness are increased when you're getting sufficient sleep, and it will take you longer to do the same thing on an underslept brain, which means you end up having to stay awake longer. So goes the vicious cycle. "

" We now know that we imprint information during the day. We sort of - that seed is planted there within the brain during the day. In other words, we learn information. But we also know that that vision that was planted in the brain still remains in the sound of silence, in this - in the dark of night. "

" Your subjective sense of how well you're doing under conditions of sleep deprivation is a miserable predictor of, objectively, how you actually are doing. "

" No one would look at an infant baby asleep, and say 'What a lazy baby!' We know sleeping is non-negotiable for a baby. But that notion is quickly abandoned. "

" Friends say, 'Shall we go out to dinner at 8?' I say, 'I can't, I'm a 10 A.M.-till-6:30 P.M. kind of guy.' I keep that very regular, no matter what. "

Matthew Walker

Kind

Friends

" If we didn't need eight hours of sleep and could survive on six, Mother Nature would have done away with 25 percent of our sleep time millions of years ago. Because when you think about it, sleep is an idiotic thing to do. "

" No one wants to give up time with their family or entertainment, so they give up sleep instead. "

Matthew Walker

Time

Sleep

" No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation. It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. "

" Creativity is, after all, lauded as the engine of business innovation. "

" When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritised, even incentivised. "

" What is dreaming, and what happens, and are there any real benefits to dreaming? Well, to take a step back, I think it's important to note that dreaming essentially is a time when we all become flagrantly psychotic. "

" Our circadian biology, and the insatiable early-morning demands of a post-industrial way of life, denies us the sleep we vitally need. "

" I think sleep is probably the neglected stepsister in the health conversation today. I think we've done a good job regarding physical activity and diet, but sleep has remained out there in the cold, and that's surprising to me. "

" I just tell people I'm a dolphin trainer. It's better for everyone. "

" People dramatically underestimate how much sleep is linked to all the diseases killing us. We know a lack of sleep is linked to numerous forms of cancer - bowel, prostate, breast cancer. "

Matthew Walker

Sleep

People

" If sleep does not provide a remarkable set of benefits, then it's the biggest mistake the evolutionary process has ever made. "

" If you were not to set an alarm clock, would you sleep past it? If the answer is yes, then there is clearly more sleep that is needed. "

Matthew Walker

You

Yes

" Alcohol is a class of drugs that we call 'the sedatives.' And what you're doing is just knocking your brain out. You're not putting it into natural sleep. "

" As you try to tweak your sleep one way or the other, you might be, you might be doing great - you might do better at remembering details of an event, but you might end up being poorer at abstracting the gist or the rules associated with it. "

" You're trying to sleep off a debt that you've lumbered your brain and body with during the week, and wouldn't it be lovely if sleep worked like that? Sadly, it doesn't. Sleep is not like the bank, so you can't accumulate a debt and then try and pay it off at a later point in time. "

" That short-sleeping that we're now suffering is a consequence of our lifestyle. It's not a consequence of evolutionary habituation. "

" It's not clear whether the brain actually is designed to have nightmares or whether this is actually the process going awry. "

" I think many people walk through their lives in an under-slept state not realizing it. It's become this new natural baseline. "

" We have stigmatised sleep with the label of laziness. "

" Midnight is the time when we think, 'Well, we should probably send our last email; let me just check Facebook one more time.' "

Matthew Walker

Last

Midnight

" Stay away from screens, especially those LED screens. Those blue-light emitting devices fool your brain into thinking that it's still daytime, even though it's night-time and you want to get to sleep. "

" Individuals fail to recognise how their perennial state of sleep deficiency has come to compromise their mental aptitude and physical vitality, including the slow accumulation of ill health. "

" Dream sleep provides a fascinating neurochemical soothing balm. It is during dream sleep and only during dream sleep when our brain shuts off a stress-related neurochemical called noradrenalin. "