Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

4 reviews

heather667's review against another edition

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Medical content, Death, Animal cruelty, and Torture

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Dementia, Alcoholism, Violence, Pregnancy, Self harm, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Grief, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Cancer, Gun violence, and Ableism

chsm8's review

hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, and Medical content

Minor: Infertility, Murder, Suicide, Torture, Eating disorder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Alcohol, Cancer, Car accident, Dementia, Drug use, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

danielles_reads's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

2.5

Half of this book is like, “Do you get less than eight hours of sleep a night? DEATH IS COMING FOR YOU.” And the other half is really interesting information on the science of sleep.

With the added bonus of constant offensive sprinklings of “the obesity epidemic” / “certain foods are always bad and others are always good,” “people with mental illness are insane and need to be fixed and/or prevented (but not with medication)” (apparently there is an ADHD “epidemic”), “SATs and IQs are meaningful measures,” and “[something] is a problem because it results in less productivity and therefore less money.” You can tell it was published in 2017 lol.

It’s also funny that the author is like, “why aren’t schools delaying start times? why are medical residents and physicians forced to work so much? why are companies not allowing flexible work hours for their employees? Leaders must be ignorant and inflexible.” It’s called capitalism bro. The status quo makes people money. It was also extremely concerning that so many of his “solutions” involved handing over personal health data regarding sleep to employers, insurers, and car companies. Not a solution dude. His “we need to reimagine society” ideas were like water drops in a shit bucket lmao. Dream bigger!!

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/

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Ableism, Fatphobia, and Medical trauma

Minor: Addiction, Suicide, and Torture

marionlundqvist's review

hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Medical content

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Car accident, Death, Drug use, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt