Why We Sleep

We humans spend one-third of our lives in an unresponsive, vulnerable state. Have you ever wondered why? Sleep has been one of the most important and least understood behaviors, but in the past 25 years, an explosion of scientific discoveries has shed new light on this puzzling subject. Our text for this study group is the highly readable New York Times bestseller Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (Scribner, 2018) by Matthew Walker, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley.  Dr. Walker argues that we are in the midst of a "silent sleep loss epidemic" that poses ‘the greatest public health challenge we face in the 21st century."  He will lead us in a journey exploring the vital function of sleep in health and disease, including the cognitive, health, safety, and business consequences of compromising the quality and quantity of our sleep.  We will learn and discuss how sleep impacts learning, emotional stability, our health, appetite; and we will investigate the science of dreams.