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heather667's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Torture, and Medical content
Moderate: Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Dementia, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy
Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Police brutality, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition
4.0
The book doesn't get a higher rating for me, because it felt like the author claims sleep deprivation is the cause of many conditions and historical events (e.g., the Chernobyl disaster) without adequate sources nor a nuanced lens. These claims therefore feel hyperbolic compared to the rest of the book's diligent research.
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Car accident
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Fatphobia
CAR ACCIDENT: Graphic description of car accident. ABLEISM: Moderate. The author implies a relationship between poor sleep and several health conditions such as autism, ADHD and substance abuse. In doing so, he frequently uses ableist language and/or ideas. On page 315, he criticizes the use of stimulants for treatment of ADHD when his expertise is not on this condition nor its management. Instead, this argument comes off as critical of all who manage ADHD using medication. As well, on page 317, the author describes someone as being a "helpless drug addict" and their drug use as being "a dirty secret...and a sad habit". ANIMAL CRUELTY: Graphic. Several descriptions of animal testing that vary in levels of detail. For some, the author expressed sympathy to the suffering of the testing animals. FATPHOBIA: Minor. The author conflates obesity with other health conditions without research to back these claims.danielles_reads's review against another edition
2.5
I also didn’t like how dogmatic the author is (probably because he thinks deficient sleep is the cause of all problems and sufficient sleep solves everything). He said multiple times that you should go to bed and wake up at the same times every day no matter what. I’m sorry but some experiences in life are more important than getting the perfect 8 hours of sleep! He also basically said don’t drink any alcohol or caffeine because it ruins your sleep. The philosophy of “everything in moderation” helps people adhere to healthy habits, but the author seems to think it’s all or nothing. He did include some useful information on CBT-I treatment for insomniacs, but I can’t help but think that this book will make people who don’t get enough sleep for reasons they can’t control (work, children, illness, etc.) feel like shit. He didn’t include any reassurances, just constant doom and gloom statistics on less sleep causing every issue under the sun. For God’s sake, taking even one half of a sleeping pill once a year results in a 3x increased chance of death, like what the hell?? Just stop. It was especially ironic considering at the end of the book he mentioned how doom-and-gloom popular media is. What is your book then dude?!
I really appreciated the sections on how sleep works and how it affects our brains (as well as every animal on earth), and I really learned a lot in those sections. It’s so cool how sleep helps us remember things and create new links between things we experience! The stuff about sleep pressure and how our circadian rhythms change as we age is so interesting! I didn’t know the science of dreaming was so advanced!! The reason for humans being sensitive to blue light being because of our evolutionary past as marine life is wild too. I also really liked how the author explained scientific information, with metaphors and simple language. It was especially helpful for someone like me, who has a very shallow understanding of biology. I especially liked the one about brain waves being compared to a stadium of people yelling into a microphone lol.
But a lot of this book was repetitive fear-mongering that focused way too much on individuals’ failings even though it pretended not to. Honestly it’s best to just read part 1 (“This Thing Called Sleep”) and part 3 (“How and Why We Dream”) and call it a day.
Also, I found this page showing how inaccurate a lot of this book is, so take everything said in this book with a grain of salt (FUCK 🥲): https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Ableism, Fatphobia, and Medical trauma
Minor: Addiction, Suicide, and Torture
tarynlannister's review against another edition
4.0
Minor: Ableism and Fatphobia
little_white's review against another edition
4.25
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Ableism and Body horror