As I go through my notes in my effort to transfer them all to a website, I’ll share some interesting ones here with everyone. Today, I’ll share a few notes from a book I read in 2019: Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker:
\-Medical errors are the third leading cause of death among Americans, following heart attacks and cancer.
\-Dr. William Halstead, the doctor who shaped how new doctors train in residency during his time at Johns Hopkins, was addicted to cocaine. He infused his sleepless, frenetic pace into the residency process which continues to be used in one form or another in the US to this day. The author argues that this sleep deprived schedule has left many patients injured or dead.
\-Increasing sleep through later start times in schools increases attendance, reduces behavioral and psychological problems, and decreases alcohol and drug use. In addition, later start times mean later finish times. This protects many teams from the danger window of 3 to 6 pm when parents are still at work and the students would otherwise go unsupervised.
\-A study involving teenagers deprived of REM sleep for a week led the researchers overseeing the study to conclude that REM sleep is what stands between rationality and insanity. After a few days of being deprived of REM sleep, many of the teenagers experienced paranoia and hallucinations.
\-Sleeping less than eight hours a night increases the body’s sense of hunger for food. In a study of adults that slept five hours a night, they ate 300 more calories a day than those that slept the normal amount.
I thought this was a really fun read and made me appreciate sleep even more than I already did.
PM me if you would be interested in helping me test out my site with all my notes. I actually just posted my 2,000th note earlier today. It’s currently in beta testing so I can use as much feedback as I can get.
by NoteClimber