If nothing else, this book will at least scare you to sleep! ( )

Interesting read. I learned some, although I was aware of much of it. Nice writing style, easy to read. ( )

How many times do you hear or say things like: "I'm tired." "I didn't get enough sleep last night." "I'll just stay up to get this done and try to sleep more this weekend." "Sometimes I try to sleep in, but it just doesn't happen." "It takes me forever to fall asleep at night."

These phrases are becoming increasingly common for us to say and hear--and even tell ourselves. And Arianna Huffington sets out a good case for what this all means. Without a doubt, we are in a sleep deprivation crisis as a society. With the pressure to do more and more in the same amount of time in a day, people are overextending themselves and giving up something essential to survival: sleep. As we are also more stimulated and connected by technology, it makes it that much harder to wind down at the end of a long day.

While we often dismiss this as okay, using some of the phrases above, it has health implications that we may not always know are there. Fatigue and exhaustion are just the tip of the iceberg. Sleep has been shown to have connections to healthy weight, blood pressure, and several other conditions.

But knowing we're sleep deprived is just the beginning. Especially since almost everyone would admit that they feel tired or sleep deprived on some level at some point in any given week. Where Huffington takes things a step further is offering some suggestions for how we can each start addressing the crisis in our own lives. Working on the issue starts with each person. Not only is this because society isn't going to shift until the people pushing for the shift reaches critical mass. It's also because the tactics and strategies for prioritizing sleep need to be determined on an individual basis.

This is an interesting read. Huffington has collected a great deal of research and anecdotes in one nice, tidy place. And while I don't think anything here is particularly profound or novel, it's a stimulating and thought-provoking read.

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.] ( )

Arianna Huffington became an apostle of sleep after collapsing from exhaustion in her hotel room and breaking her cheekbone. She was a workaholic who burned candles at both ends who viewed sleep dimly, if not as disdainfully as some other famous people in her new book, The Sleep Revolution. After coming to realize how unhealthy and unsustainable her lifestyle had become, she made peace with sleep and recognizing that many Americans shared her proclivity for work and productivity above all else, became an evangelist for it. Her book diagnoses both a personal and societal issue. She catalogs the costs and externalities of lack of sleep (accidents, health problems, loss of productivity at work, etc.), provides a lot of scientific evidence about sleep's benefits, discusses dreams, and finally, in the second half of the book, gives some tips on how to get a good night's sleep. She covers a lot of ground, and she does so in a very readable way. However, partly because she is addressing both the larger societal issues, as well as those that may plague individuals, this book is less a self-help book for a person looking for specific tips (there is some of this, but it's not the focus) than a more general read. ( )

Very well written, and very informative - the part I could get through. However, for some reason, reading about sleep made me...

Sleepy. Very sleepy.

So I will have to finish this some other day. I will say, her writing is concise and approachable, and her research is deep. ( )