Sleep Sense: Improve your sleep, improve your health

by Katharina Lederle

Sleep is fundamental to our health and wellbeing. In this guide to improving your sleep quality by adapting your environment and routines, you’ll discover how you can establish healthy sleep habits that best fit your life!International sleep expert Dr Katharina Lederle draws on the latest research to explore how sleep is connected to each of the three pillars of healthy and successful physical health, cognitive performance, and emotional wellbeing. As these pillars are interconnected, if one is weakened through poor sleep, our overall health can easily be undermined.The book begins with a tour of the most essential information for understanding sleep; how and where it is generated and regulated, why light is so important for sleep, and how sleep differs by gender. It also touches briefly upon dreaming, highlighting that it is normal to dream and perhaps useful to reflect a little on what we dream about.The latter part of the book looks in detail at how sleep affects the pillars of healthy living, explains the sleep disorders which compromise these pillars, and sets out a ‘menu’ of healthy sleep options from which readers can choose to best suit their individual needs. The result is a book that both informs and educates as it sets out clear guidelines and practical advice on how you can achieve improved health through improved sleep.

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

Published June 12, 2018

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and easy to understand more about something very important for health in general. Learned quite a lot and sparked an interest to learn more about sleep. Have struggled with sleep (nightmares/ sleep hallucinations/sleep paralysis) for a long time but never really had an interest to learn more about it

[Shauni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, very informative for the layperson and incredibly easy to understand and learn from

[John Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful and valuable guide to those who have sleep problems and wish to understand more about this vital part of our lives.

[Emily Feldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

nothing revolutionary compared to other books but definitely one of the more complete “pop” sleep books

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5

Adequate sleep is a long game.

Main takeaways:
1) The biological purpose of sleep is still not fully understood, but it's clear that it has to do with restoring both the body's immune system and the brain's memory stores
2) When we're short on sleep:
- it's easier to catch colds and other diseases
- we struggle with decision-making
- simple motor functions become measurably less efficient
3) The more consistency we can achieve in our overall sleep patterns, the better we're able to recover from occasional lapses in sleep quality: a daily pattern of good sleep hygiene - getting out into the daylight, not eating late, respecting the sleeping space - helps provide a sleep credit store that we can rely on, even on those days we drop our best habits
4) To discover your natural rhythms, try forgoing alcohol, caffeine, and alarms for a week, and see what happens

Actionable advice: Maintain a strategic approach to your sleep-life:
a) if you're up late, limit your lie-in to around an hour after your usual get-up time;
b) aim for consistency over the year, not just the week.
Your 'sleept debt' will even itself out.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sleep is good. Bad sleep is bad. Helpful & simple. This was not a book on gender but it did explain gender differences in sleep and sleep disorders - and so I was again reminded of why a 30-day hormonal cycle is scientifically more annoying than a 24hr cycle. I mostly read it as a kick up the backside to just sleep better, and (to no ones surprise) 7-8hrs feels way better than 5-6hrs !

[Kara Rowley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

[Jonas Svarholt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative.

[Reilly Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing ground breaking in this book, though it can serve as a good reminder for what good sleep habits are and how to incorporate them into your life.