Why Do We Sleep?

Why is sleep so important?

Your body can operate on a lack of food and drink and still feel relatively normal. But if you skip sleep the effects can be much more prominent. Affecting mood, concentration and more. 

As a bed linen manufacturer we always take an interest in the latest research about anything to do with sleep and what can be done to improve our nights rest.  

The Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD, has created quite a buzz with his groundbreaking research into the importance and incredible effects of sleep. 

At Victoria Linen your good nights’ sleep has always been one of our top priorities. As past research has told us restful, refreshing sleep is indispensable to your health and well-being.  This can be helped by sleeping in natural, breathable materials that promote air movement and regulate your body temperature while you sleep.

Professor Walker’s latest research carefully analyses and looks further into the process of sleep and its effects on the body. 

While Why We Sleep is his first book, he has published more than 100 research studies, a result of research in Nottingham, Harvard, and now UC Berkeley, where he serves as Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and Director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory.

Groundbreaking Discoveries

Walker’s work explores the purpose of sleep, uncovers its positive transformative power, and explains how we can channel that power. The discovery begins by seeking answers to why we sleep and the good it does for our lives, health, wellness, and longevity. The book allows us to gain a new understanding of the significance of sleep and dreaming on a number of areas in our lives – including the positive effects on learning, logic, mood, energy, and memory. Getting the amount of sleep needed each night enriches the immune system, balances our metabolism, normalizes emotions, and even helps control our cravings.
Walker also explores the positive effects the dreams of deep, REM sleep deliver – from soothing painful thoughts, allowing the mind to effectively process knowledge both past and present, and enhance creativity. With the latest scientific breakthroughs based on decades of clinical practice and research, Walker delves into the connection between sleep deficiency and cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, aging, and obesity.

Sleep Loss Epidemic

Professor Walker also proclaims a sleep loss epidemic in today’s world. Unsurprisingly as a result of social and business patterns as well as continually disrupted sleep. Walker investigates the ruinous effect it has on our lives, our productivity, our learning, our memory, and our safety. Blazing a new trail, Walker dares to examine the damaging impact of caffeine, alcohol, medication, and everyday sleep aids on us which ultimately affects our sleep, health, and well-being. He also explores the effects of temperature, lighting, and the often abnormal working hours and always on social connectivity which often encourages us to get less than the required amount of sleep. Walker seems to dispel the ‘myth’ perpetrated by today’s culture which supposes that functioning on less sleep indicates prowess, expertise, and strength, while sleeping a sufficient amount indicates weakness and failing and science is on his side. This sleep loss epidemic causally connects lack of sleep to the lessened ability to learn, make decisions, and remember as well as the inception of heart disease, cancer dementia, immune disorders, and diabetes.

Help for Healthy Sleep

Professor Walkers main advice (which he follows) is to sleep eight to nine hours. He reiterates throughout, with the scientific evidence to back his claims, less than seven hours of sleep on a regular basis is detrimental to health and wellness in the present and in the long term. As one of the top neuroscientist and sleep experts in the world, Walker’s research confirms that sleep, is just as important, if not more, than diet and exercise in our lives.

At Victoria Linen, we are all for getting an exceptional night’s sleep and our luxury thread count fabrics are the perfect foundation on which to begin.

You can follow our own Top 10 tips for a good nights sleep here

And read more about Matthew Walkers book here