Ronald Reagan was apparently famed for his love of sleep and hated
to be disturbed during the night. Paul McCartney dreamed some of
his best songs while asleep, including Yesterday, Yellow Submarine
and Let It Be. Paul Martin's book tells you everything you ever
wanted to know about sleep. Although a recent study suggested that
too much sleep might be bad for us, Martin is firmly of the opinion
that we don't get enough of it. Looking at the long-hours culture
of British politics, he suggests it's hogwash to believe it's both
feasible and admirable to sleep only four hours a night.
Sleepiness, he points out, is partly responsible for many of the
world's worst major accidents including the Supertanker Exxon
Valdez and the Three Mile Island Power Station. Sleepiness results
in more deaths on the road than alcohol or drugs. What is sleep
for? Martin examines the various theories. Is it simply the best
thing to do during darkness? Is it for brain maintenance? Are
dreams merely waste products? He examines remedies for insomnia
from opium through to valerian, to having your feet tickled. He
looks at sleep walking, night terrors, nightmares and snoring.
There is a whole chapter on the curious phenomena of nocturnal
emissions and yawning. We just don't appreciate our beds enough.
Winston Churchill worked in bed all morning. John Bayley writes his
books in bed. Benjamin Disraeli used two beds in hot weather,
keeping cool by moving back and forth between them. An American
psychologist has even suggested that George Bush's gaffes and
garbled sentences are the result of lack of shut-eye on the part of
a man who needs a lot of it. The book deplores the way society
wilfully ignores the problem of sleep. Sleep disorders are given
only five minutes in a medical education syllabus, and the prime
importance of sleep for the recovery of hospital patients is
totally ignored in the organization of most hospital routines.
Challenging, enquiring, liberally seasoned with quotations from
Shakespeare to James Joyce, this is the ideal bedside book,
especially if you can't sleep! (Kirkus UK)
'A fascinating account of what happens during the dark third of our lives, the time with which we are so familiar but about which we know so little.'
'Sunday Telegraph'
'Energetic and immensely readable, this is as good a popular science book as I have read…A timely reminder that we ignore sleep at our peril, 'Counting Sheep' will tell you why sleep-deprived people are shorter, why some blind people dream in pictures and others don't, and what dreams are actually for and it does this with such vivacity and infectious enthusiasm that by the end of this book you'll be racing to your bed to try out a few sleepy experiments for yourself.'
'Evening Standard'
'A masterpiece of efficiently and entertainingly delivered information, bracingly clear and thoroughly researched…whether you want to know about the half-brain slumbers of dolphins, the appalling disease of fatal familial insomnia, or how to cultivate lucid dreams.'
'New Statesman'
'A thoroughly engaging and passionate book…littered with fascinating experiments, titillating examples and offbeat asides.'
'Scotland on Sunday'
'A more gripping subject for a book than almost any other…Even if you don't buy into the dark side of sleep deprivation, Martin's mourning of the lost pleasures of languor might win you over. To me, it sounds irresistible.'
'Daily Telegraph'
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