The Balcony on Why We Sleep

The Balcony on Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker: a neuroscientist's case that two-thirds of adults are short of the eight hours. Vera takes chapter seven's fourteen-day experiment, where six hours a night for ten days equalled a day without sleep and nobody could tell. Augie takes the pianist in chapter six: practice, then sleep, twenty percent faster by morning. Chapter fifteen sends the bill: nearly $2,000 an employee a year.

Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker's 2017 book, is a neuroscientist's case that sleep does many jobs for brain and body and that two-thirds of adults in developed nations are not getting the eight hours it takes: chapter 7's fourteen-day experiment found ten days of six hours a night left people as impaired as twenty-four hours awake, and they could not tell; chapter 6's typing experiment found a skill improved 20 percent in speed only across a night of sleep, so practice plus sleep makes perfect; and chapter 15 puts the cost at almost $2,000 per employee a year.

On the book: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Starring

DotVera LindqvistAugie Castellano