Why We Sleep

A lot of you seem to dislike the concept of sleep. A lot of you absolutely indulge in it. Today’s post is going to be another book summary on ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker. All I have to say is that we need to start taking naps more seriously.

The book is broken down into 4 main parts. I’ll briefly touch on the first 3 sections in more detail and talk about some of the ways we can improve our quality of sleep.

• This Thing Called Sleep
• Why Should You Sleep?
• How and Why We Dream
• From Sleeping Pills to Society Transformed

This Thing Called Sleep

Have you ever thought to yourself “I’m just really not a morning person”? Well, apparently that could be true. We can divide people into more or less 3 categories; ‘morning larks’, ‘night owls’ and a combination of the two. Morning larks account for 40% of the population, night owls and the combination account for 30% each. This is known as a chronotype and it’s heavily determined by genes.

From an evolutionary point of view, it kind of makes sense. We needed people to stay up late at night to defend the tribe. If everyone went to bed at the same time, it would increase the risk of being vulnerable and getting attacked. However, in this day and age, being a night owl isn’t necessarily as advantageous. The systems and work schedules we have in place are biased towards the morning larks. This needs to change to accommodate those who are naturally inclined to work better at night.

So how does your body physically know when it’s time for bed? Melatonin. This chemical is released after dusk indicating to your body that it’s time to get ready for bed. It should be noted that it has little influence on the generation of sleep. It just informs your mind that it’s night time.

What actually does influence your tiredness and ability to sleep is a different chemical called adenosine. It essentially accumulates in your body from the time you wake up and increases your desire to sleep. This is known as sleep pressure and is what makes you feel sleepy.

How have we managed to overcome this urge for slumber? A lot of you might be familiar (and perhaps addicted) to the answer, caffeine. Just so you know, caffeine is classified as a psychoactive stimulant. It works by blocking the adenosine receptors; diminishing the sleep pressure. The problem is that the amount of adenosine in your system will continue to rise. So once the caffeine wears out, you often feel even more tired. Caffeine also has a half-life of around 6 hours. This means that after 6 hours, 50% of it will still be lurking in your system.

Your sleep can be categorized into 90 minute cycles of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) which occur one after the other. This can be seen in the Figure below. REM sleep has similar brainwaves to your waking state. It’s essentially your dreaming state – where you’re temporarily paralyzed (if you ever sleepwalk, there’s essentially a disruption during your REM sleep). It’s also when you’re able to integrate your memories and solve problems. The NREM cycle is when you’re in a more logical, slow-waved and reflective state. It’s when you save memories and make sense of your experiences. Both cycles are extremely important and can only be utilized when you sleep for over 7 hours sufficiently.

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Why Should You Sleep?

• To be a functional human being and contribute to society
• To remember stuff
• To help your body recovery – especially if you’re active
• To solidify your immune system
• To get smarter (problem-solving and creativity)
• To control your body weight
• To enhance your social awareness (and emotional intelligence)
• I could honestly keep going on…

I’ve gone into the previous chapter in enough detail. The abovementioned bullets provide enough evidence to support the claim of requiring at least 7 hours of sleep. Everything in moderation, obviously. Don’t go for more than 9-10 hours of sleep (if you’re a young adult).

The rate race will tempt you into sacrificing this invaluable coping mechanism. It’s not worth it. Find the right balance.

How and Why We Dream

It’s quite incredible how similar the state of psychosis is to dreaming, considering that you were:

• Hallucinating
• Delusional
• Disoriented
• Affectively labile (extreme swings in emotion)
• And suffering from amnesia

These are normal biological and psychological processes that we experience when we dream. REM sleep specifically is associated with the active, conscious experience of dreaming.

We don’t just dream about the events of our day, but rather, the emotions that we’ve experienced. This allows us to effectively keep our mental health in check, alongside many of the other benefits I mentioned previously. The problem-solving and ability to form logical connections all occur during our dreaming state.

“Dreaming takes the approach of interrogating our recent autobiographical experience and skillfully positioning it within the context of past experiences and accomplishments, building a rich tapestry of meaning.”

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Tips for getting better sleep:

• Have a consistent time to go to bed and to wake up
• Keep away from blue light at least 30 minutes before you sleep (don’t get into the habit of staring at your phone as you’re trying to sleep)
• Keep the room temperature relatively cool (around 20°C)
• Cut out your last cup of coffee more than 6 hours before you plan to sleep
• Exercise regularly (not too late in the evening)

To summarize everything I’ve learned from this book: If you don’t get enough sleep, you will literally die. I’ve barely gone into the same level of detail as the book, so I highly recommend you give it a read for yourself to truly maximize the benefit you can gain from understanding the importance of sleep.

Moving forward, we need to really start appreciating the impact a consistent amount of good quality sleep can have on our lives. If you know anyone who argues against the requirement of over 6 hours of sleep, please recommend this book to them. More often than not, they haven’t done adequate research.

Have a great night and rest well! You deserve it.

The Tipping Point

A book summary, when last! I’m on my third book of the year and I thought I should write a book summary, considering how long it’s been.

The Tipping Point is a book by Malcolm Gladwell about how little things can make a big difference. It’s an idea about how certain concepts like fashion trends, messages and behaviours spread in a similar way to viruses.

The key components are:

• The three rules of epidemics
  • Contagiousness
  • Little causes can have big effects
  • How changes can happen in one dramatic moment
• The law of the few
• The stickiness factor
• The power of context

Considering we’re in an actual pandemic, let’s go through these key components and make sense of them within our own context.

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The Three Rules of Epidemics

The three rules of epidemics essentially speaks to the ingredients of how things spread. Firstly, it needs to be contagious. Whether it’s a virus or an idea, it requires an effective method to travel and spread.

Secondly, the concept of how little causes can have big effects describes how once a virus enters your system, it can completely take over. The same logic applies to fashion trends when certain influencers promote a new look. It’s a small change, but it can have a monumental impact on the industry.

The third rule speaks to how changes doesn’t necessarily have to be gradual. It can happen quite erratically. This essentially speaks to exponential growth. We’ve seen that with how the number of Covid cases started to rise.

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The Law of the Few

• Connecters – People specialists
• Mavens – Information specialists
• Salesmen – Persuasion specialists

Connecters, mavens and salesmen are critical individuals involved in allowing trends to ‘tip’ past a certain point. Connecters are people who are incredibly gifted socially. They have an enourmous network and know everyone. They’re comfortable having ‘weak ties’ with many different people and form acquaintances. These people are important because they help spread ideas through their network. They help us connect with important people

Mavens are people who typically accumulate knowledge. They also have a relatively large social network. They don’t just passively collect information, they actively try to share it. They find out about the best deals and want you to know about it too. Their motivation is to educate and help.

Salesmen are people who are effective at convincing us about things we are hesitant about. They’re extremely effective at using subtle non-verbal cues, physical harmony and motor mimicry. These are forms of body language and communication that allow us to feel comfortable, heard and understood.

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I suppose in the context of our pandemic, mavens provided the virus, connectors spread it and salesmen convinced us that we were in trouble.

The Stickiness Factor

The stickiness factor is about how messages, ideas or trends actually stick to their target audience. It’s presenting it in such a way that people can’t seem to let go – or constantly want more of it.

It’s the way TV shows get viewers hooked; presenting the show in a way that makes people crave more. It’s the anticipation of another season. The keenness to expect another plot twist. The willingness to binge.

For a virus to spread effectively, it needs to have a stickiness factor. Given their biological nature, viruses essentially evolve to ‘stick’ as efficiently as possible. They spread from host to host, with the aim of reproducing and spreading their genes as much as they can.

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The Power of Context

The last idea discussed in the book was on the power of context and how our environment impacts the way we behave. What we need to understand here is that specific and relatively minor elements in the environment play a role in the Tipping Point.

Context matters because it also helps spread (or prevent) certain ideas and behaviours. It’s also why you often hear people talking about de-cluttering your work space. Because it affects your state of mind and how you interact with the world around you. It’s why your social circle matters. Because the people you surround yourself with influence you to do (or not to do) specific behaviours.

For any kind of pandemic to spread, the context in which it can grow matters. The type of people and the way they interact with each other matters.

It should be noted that all these concepts are explained in a much more profound way in the book. Gladwell uses incredible real-life case studies to argue his point. So far, we’ve looked at the Three Rules of Epidemics, The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context.

Each of these elements can dramatically help us spread ideas and to start trends. It also helps us understand the way in which the world functions. I hope you’ve managed to get a little bit curious about these concepts and to maybe read the book for yourself.

As for now, I hope you have an incredible week and find something interesting to learn.