Sleep
Last updated: January 05, 2025
The best books on sleep.
The Awesome Power of Sleep: How Sleep Supercharges Your Teenage Brain
by Nicola Morgan
The Awesome Power of Sleep is an informative nonfiction book about the science of sleep for humans in general, but with a focus on the special biology of teenagers. Readers get an overview of concepts such as circadian rhythm, melatonin, different stages of sleep, sleep problems and disorders, and dreaming. Having established the importance of sleep for learning and memory and for our overall mental and physical health, the author goes on to offer plenty of practical advice on how to get adequate sleep, including a list of online resources. The Awesome Power of Sleep is a useful read not only for teenagers but for their parents too.
Ages 11+
When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep
by Antonio Zadra & Robert Stickgold
In When Brains Dream Tony Zadra, a professor at the University of Montreal, and Bob Stickgold, a professor at Harvard Medical School, bring us up to date on what the latest scientific research says about dream and dreaming, ending our reliance on popular wisdom based on what Freud wrote more than a century ago. It's written in an (overly?) friendly style—almost as if you had met them at a drinks party and they were telling you all about their research—but it's really informative. If you're interested in sleep in general, the authors also recommend Why We Sleep, the bestselling 2017 book by Professor Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist and psychologist at UC Berkeley.
“This book really surprised me with its range. Sasha Handley talks about medicine and medical practice. She talks about the material culture of sleep. There are some great discussions, for example, of beds and places where people would sleep, and she also tries to reconstruct people’s physical and emotional experiences of this thing called sleep, which let’s face it, is tricky.” Read more...
Karen Harvey, Historian
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
by Matthew Walker
Why We Sleep is a bestselling book about the vital importance of sleep to human functioning. It's by sleep scientist Matthew Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of its Center for Human Sleep Science. We neglect the importance of sleep at our peril, he warns: "relative to the recommended seven to nine hours, the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span."
