Why sleep disorders are killing you.
The natural question that precedes this is ‘why do we sleep?’ Think about that for a minute — do you really know why you sleep? To understand how little you know about sleep, I’ve chosen to allude to some excerpts from Dr.Matthew Walker’s book ‘Why We Sleep’ as described by Dr.Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal. One of the professors at Edinburgh Medical School, where I was taught from 1970–76, was a world expert on sleep, but I remember hearing little about sleep at medical school. We were taught about sleeping pills, and I remember routinely prescribing them for patients undergoing surgery the next day — with no understanding of the damage I was doing. In my 25 years at The BMJ I remember publishing little on sleep, although we did publish an ABC of Sleep Disorders, with the emphasis on the disorders. Generally, like most doctors, I thought little about sleep. Now I read in Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dre