The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life: the new sleep science
Leading neuroscientist/'nʊro/ Matthew/'mæθju:/ Walker/'wɔkɚ/ on why sleep deprivation/ˌdɛprɪ'veʃən/ is increasing our risk of cancer, heart attack and Alzheimer’s – and what you can do about it
By Rachel Cooke
Matthew Walker has learned to dread/drɛd/ the question “What do you do?” At parties, it signals the end of his evening; thereafter, his new acquaintance/ə'kwentəns/ will inevitably/ɪn'ɛvɪtəbli/ cling/klɪŋ/ to him like ivy/'aɪvi/. On an aeroplane/'ɛrə'plen/, it usually means that while everyone else watches movies or reads a thriller/'θrɪlɚ/, he will find himself running an hours-long salon/sə'lɑn/ for the benefit of passengers and crew/krʊ/ alike/ə'laɪk/. “I’ve begun to lie,” he says. “Seriously. I just tell people I’m a dolphin/'dɑlfɪn/ trainer. It’s better for everyone.”
Walker is a sleep scientist. To be specific, he is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley/ˈbɚkli/, a research institute/'ɪnstɪtut/ whose goal – possibly unachievable – is to understand everything about sleep’s impact on us, from birth to death, in sickness and health. No wonder, then, that people long for his counsel. As the line between work and leisure/'liʒɚ/ grows ever more blurred/'blə:rid/, rare is the person who doesn’t worry about their sleep. But even as we contemplate the shadows beneath our eyes, most of us don’t know the half of it – and perhaps this is the real reason he has stopped telling strangers how he makes his living. When Walker talks about sleep he can’t, in all conscience/'kɑnʃəns/, limit himself to whispering/'hwɪspərɪŋ/ comforting nothings about camomile/'kæməmaɪl/ tea and warm baths. It’s his conviction that we are in the midst of a “catastrophic/ˌkætə'strɑfɪk/ sleep-loss epidemic/ˌɛpɪ'dɛmɪk/”, the consequences of which are far graver than any of us could imagine. This situation, he believes, is only likely to change if government gets involved.
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