The new science of sleep: Everything we know about how it affects your health and brain
Dr. Matthew Walker on ScienceFocus.com, Jul 2021
(from the article) “There is no major health system within your body or operation within your brain, that isn’t wonderfully enhanced by sleep when you get it, or demonstrably impaired when you don’t get enough.
Unfortunately, sleep is also not like the bank. Let’s say I deprive you of sleep for a night (eight hours) at my Center for Human Sleep Science. Then I give you all of the recovery sleep you want on a second or even third night. While you will sleep more on those nights, you will never claim back all that slumber that you lost. Indeed, you may claim back less than 50 per cent of that missing eight hours.
As a result, you will always carry that debt. In other words, you cannot accumulate a sleep debt during the week, and then hope to pay it off in full at the weekend. Try as you may, you can never get back all that you lost. Week after week, this sleep debt escalates, like compounding interest on an unpaid loan.
We should therefore think of sleep as the very best life- and health-insurance policy you could ever wish for. Thankfully, in terms of medical recommendations, it is largely painless, free, and available to pick up on repeat prescription each night, if you choose.
Sleep is the single most effective thing we do each day to reset the health of our brain and body. It’s an extraordinary elixir that can help you age well and live longer. Here’s what we know about Mother Nature’s cure-all…”
