Sleep: A Very Short Introduction

Muito bem escrito e uma excelente referencia para estudo. Capítulos muito bem divididos e referenciado. O foco de cada um permite um entendimento que possibilita o aprofundamento caso o leitor tenha interesse.

Very good

I went on a little reading binge on books about sleep. Understandably, they covered a lot of the same material (but not exactly the same) and each one had a distinctive style to it. For comparison here are the books I read (in order):1) The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest by Penelope A. Lewis2) Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall3) Sleep: A Very Short Introduction by Steven W. Lockley4) The Secret Life of Sleep by Kat DuffI was looking mainly for scientific information, in conjunction, perhaps, with interesting anecdotes. Dreamland by David Randall was the closest to what I thought I was looking for and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in sleep. The Secret World of Sleep by Penelope Lewis and Sleep: A Very Short Introduction by Lockley and Foster were a little more purely scientific. However, among these two I strongly preferred the no-nonsense style of Sleep: A Very Short Introduction. By comparison, The Secret World of Sleep felt like an academic paper that had been hastily modified by a copy-editor to read like a popular science book. The result is not-very-exciting writing that is larded with "accessible" descriptions and analogies. The amygdala is referred to at least a dozen times by the epithet "almond shaped". The first time was fine, the fifth time was patronizing. But I powered through.I cannot recommend Kat Duff's book, because of passages that give serious credence to the explanation that hypnogogic hallucinations are in fact visitations by evil spirits. See my review there for more details.The best thing about this book is how succinct it is. I suggest reading it along with (before or after) the David Randall book.

Sleep takes up about one third of our lives. Therefore it is important to understand sleep and its pathologies. This book fully meets this requirement and is therefore recommended to all who want to gain some insight into a hidden but crucial part of being a human.As frankly stated in the book, many features of sleep and the factors shaping it are not really understood. A definition of sleep fitting comparable phenomena in all forms of life is lacking. And, most important of all, "The reasons why we sleep remain frustratingly unresolved" (p. 40). But some of the essential functions of human sleep are known. These include many biological ones. On the mental level, "In humans, procedurial learning, declarative learning, and even higher-level "insights" - the process of mental restructing in the brain, that leads to a sudden gain of understandilgn or explicit knowledge - have been shown to depend on sleep" (p. 52). Also, "sleep helps our brains find creative solutions" (p.1). All the more serious are the consequences of sleep deprivation and disturbances, as caused by a variety of pathologies; shift work; disruption of the natural day-night cycle which is hardwired into humans by its evolutionary history, caused by modern 24 hour active, noisy and brightly lightened modern societies; and personal neglect of sleep requirements.This leads to a very important issue, not discussed in the book, namely the potentially serious consequences of sleep deprivation and disturbances by high level decision makers. The work schedule of political leaders increases the dangers of serious and sometimes catastrophic errors, especially in crisis situations. This is also the case when traveling through time zones, rushing from continent to continent for important meetings.Matters are made even worse because of unawareness of lack of sleep consequences."While there are individual differences in how sleep deficiency affects alertness and performance, no-one is immune....Unfortunately, our sleepy brain cannot judge our own abilities, and as a result we are sometimes blissfully, and dangerously, unaware of our impaired performance" (p. 91). And, again, "the sleepy brain cannot evaluate itself and often underestimates how sleepy we are" (p. 105).Fatigue-reducing drugs are only helpful for short periods and then produce aggravated mental capacity degradations. Therefore, essential is strict time management making sure that high level decision makers have enough time and suitable conditions for sleeping about six to seven hours daily, with few exceptions; and that they follow special regimes to reduce jet-lag problems and in crisis situations. But, my studies of quite a number of heads of governments around the world show that when critical issues are faced sleep deprivation is the rule, with more than a few dismal consequences. It would be very interesting to learn if this played a role in "sleepwalking" into the catastrophe of World War One 100 years ago, but in the various books being published on this episode contain no information on the sleep rationing of the critical decision makers, such data being usually unavailable..I wish the authors had taken up the problem of sleep deprivation by senior decision makers, which can easily cause much more damage than drowsy driving as discussed by them (pp. 103-107), however tragic.All the more so this book is strongly recommended to all, including top level decision makers. I will include it in the recommended reading list of my next book on required qualities of political leadership.Professor Yehezkel DrorThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

All of us spend a third of our lives asleep – and clearly, sleep is most important to all organisms: sleep deprived animals die after too long without sleep, people who are sleep deprived go eventually insane. Surprisingly, the exact why of sleep (its adaptive use) is still a matter of debate.This book surveyes the current knowledge on the nature of sleep. It is broadly organised in two parts: in the first part, the scientific understanding on sleep physiology and regulation is summarized, in the second, the health aspects of sleep and sleep loss are covered. Written by two expert sleep researchers, the book is accessible even without too much background knowledge on sleep or neurobiology.The first part gathers information on how sophisticated the generation of sleep and dreaming by the brain is, including the human sleep stages and dream stage. The sleep mechanisms of humans are compared to those in other animals in an evolutionary framework, and the adaptations of sleep don’t stop to fascinate: for example, marine mammals can split sleep and wakefulness between the two halfs of the brain in order not to drown. The authors certainly drive home the message how central sleep is to our well being. Especially the latter part discusses the social pressure to marginalize sleep, and the resulting dangers for our own and others health.Our current life style apparently manages to get almost everything wrong to guarantee a healthy sleep. The authors include some advice on how to go on about your daily sleep routine, and also give some instructions to avoid jet lag. Some more information on the action of sleep medication would have been nice, but overall this is an exemplary book on the neuroscience of sleep. Highly recommended.