
“Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors - azizsaya
https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
======
Tomte
That's interesting, but when reading the book my takeaways weren't really
whether some cancer risks doubles or so.

They were

* what are REM/NREM, light and deep NREM sleep for?

* some fascinating study about lucid dreaming

* effects of coffein and sleep medication

* sleep hygiene tips

* some other things I can't recall right now

Yes, you can read about these things elsewhere, too, but I still think the
book is a tremendous introduction to the subject.

But I don't have an academic interest in the subject, so the criticisms in the
article do not matter much to me (except for some uneasy feeling about
accuracy in general). If you're a student of medicine, cognitive sciences or
whatever, you should probably get your introduction elsewhere anyway.

~~~
guzey
The criticisms should matter to you!

Why do you believe that his representation of research on REM/NREM, light and
deep NREM sleep is scientifically accurate?

Why do you believe his representation of effects of coffein and sleep
medication is scientifically accurate?

I cover this in sections 14.3 and 14.4: [https://guzey.com/books/why-we-
sleep/#appendix-common-object...](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-
sleep/#appendix-common-objections)

~~~
erituises
Thank you so much for this article.

I read his book and one of the points he made was you could never "make up"
missing sleep.

For example, if you pulled an all nighter, you couldn't make it up the next
few days if you slept more. Basically the health effects of missing a day of
sleep would affect you for the rest of your life.

That was a quite shocking. Were you able to find any information on whether he
was exaggerating this?

~~~
guzey
I didn't look into this in particular but my impression from reading the
literature is that this makes zero sense.

------
niknetniko
Thank you for this.

I am very disappointed in Matthew Walker. In fact, if I were working in the
same field as him, these findings would cast a doubt on most of his other
work. The density of the errors almost makes me unsure which is worse: the
errors are unintentional due to carelessness or they are deliberate to create
a better sounding story. (Of course, the latter is worse as it is basically
academic fraud.)

I believe there should be more books that are scientifically sound, yet
accessible to most people. I thought this was one such book, but alas.

~~~
guzey
You might enjoy the section where I cover a little bit of his academic work,
in case you missed it: [https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-but-
this-is-j...](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-but-this-is-just-
a-popular-science-book-why-such-scrutiny-how-academic-urban-legends-are-
created) :)

------
shermanmccoy
Thank you! I was turned off even earlier by the glaring 'post hoc ergo propter
hoc' logic error on the very first page of the text.

Quoting from the second paragraph, following a load of claims of the maladies
that come from lack of sleep:

"Fitting Charlotte Bronte's prophetic wisdom that a 'ruffled mind makes a
restless pillow', sleep disruption further contributes to all major
psychiatric conditions..."

It is plain that Charlotte Bronte was inferring psychiatric conditions lead to
sleep disruption, not the other way around.

~~~
guzey
Thanks! Yes, your quote is another good example of the book's level of
argumentation. Not going to include this because I get too many "nitpicking"
charges against me already :)

------
dsaavy
This sparks an idea... what if there was a tool that crawled all academic
studies’ sources. Basically allowing you to see the root source of every cited
study back to square one. Would make it much easier to discover studies based
on a pyramid of weaker/wrong studies.

~~~
virtuallynathan
This is fun to do, but you’ll rapidly find that the academic sources don’t
even say what they claim to.

~~~
dsaavy
The foundations of modern science seem to be quite shaky...

------
TooSmugToFail
Thanks for this.

'Why we Sleep' was one of the books I was reading before reading your
analysis, and you saved me from wasting any more time on that obviously
inaccurate load of hyperbole.

More importantly, you saved me from wasting even more time trying to apply any
of the advice by what seems to be sensationalism passing off as science (and
maybe even jeopardising my health in the process).

~~~
swyx
the meta-analysis of this, tho, is how we can apply this level of
rigor/accountability to all pop sci books, or is it complete bunkum at this
point.

i mean guzey sounds meticulous enough but i dont even know enough to know if
_they_ are full of crap

------
doctaC
Even after reading the article, I still believe, in general, more sleep is
better for you. I'll continue to strive for 8 hours a night. I would still
assume the majority of Americans aren't getting enough sleep.

Maybe this does help the feelings of "If I don't get enough sleep I am going
to die young" that some may come away with after reading the book. Overall,
I'd still recommend the book.

Also, who is "Big Sleep" that is mentioned at the end of the article? Mattress
companies?

------
audiometry
Would like to see the author’s rebuttal, if he does decide to rebut.

~~~
TacoToni
Would be interesting if they were both on the Joe Rogan Podcast and had a
debate.

------
mendelmaleh
The article before this one tho:
[https://guzey.com/fiction/hntop1](https://guzey.com/fiction/hntop1)

~~~
guzey
This is actually hilarious because the sleep essay (this submission) was
starting to take off, was clearly going to hit the front page, and then it got
flagged! By the time it got unflagged by the moderators, it disappeared from
the "new" page and by some miracle did not get completely lost..

~~~
swyx
> I would probably give up a year of sex just to have this feeling again.

wow idk about you but thats a poor trade in my book

------
dean177
> No, not every living creature generates a circadian rhythm

> This is false. Brewer’s yeast (S. cerevisiae)

I don’t think most people would consider yeast a “creature“

~~~
guzey
Do you think most people know that Brewer's yeast is alive?

~~~
annamargot
Probably not. However, pointing out what many may consider a minor falsehood
could set yourself for an easy counter.

If Walker wanted to discredit your essay. He could give a sound bite like:

“Ok, yes, yeast. You’re right, but that’s not something most people consider
relevant to sleeping rhythms. Haha. The essay is nitpicking minor
technicalities but on a whole my research is unblemished.”

If I were his PR rep, I’d advise as such. You’re essay is too good to be
vulnerable like that.

~~~
guzey
I'm not sure if this is relevant. The point about Brewer's yeast is literally
in the last appendix, here: [https://guzey.com/books/why-we-
sleep/#appendix](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix) I do agree
that this is a minor point and included this mostly out of curiosity.

------
dpatrick86
Taken in light of the existence of the glymphatic system, a robust mechanism
of clearance activated by slow wave sleep, what is more likely... misfolded
protein accumulation is incidental to the loss of sleep during the course of
fatal familial insomnia _or_ loss of sleep is incidental to what is actually a
disease of misfolded proteins?

------
RachelF
That's a lot of errors, and he only examined Chapter 1 of "Why we Sleep".

Walker comes out looking like a charlatan.

------
dannykwells
Thank you for this. I've been skeptical about Matthew since his association
with Hello, the failed sleep gadget startup. This really drives home what a
salesman he is. Id like to think there will be consequences...but I doubt it.

~~~
copperx
Unfortunately, I trusted the author's UC Berkeley pedigree. I thought, "if the
facts in this book weren't true, his academic colleagues would make him an
academic pariah."

I need to tune up my BS detector. Trust, but verify.

------
bob_theslob646
Thank you for taking the time to put this together. I am curious to see if
Matthew Walker replies.

------
lovestodonothin
Thank you so much for this article!

I usually have a lot of trouble sleeping and was panicking after I read the
book. The side effects of not sleeping did seem kind of exaggerated, but glad
to know someone actually took the time to corroborate all the claims.

~~~
jholman
Pedantry note: corroborate claims is exactly what this article did _not_ do.
Maybe you had a thinko or left out a word, I certainly that from time to time,
but alternately maybe you want to look up what the fancy word means.

HTH

(Maybe you're just sleep deprived! (I kid, I kid))

------
eneveu
Thank you Alexey for this great article. I was actually in the process of
reading the book.

I would be very interested in an analysis of the scientific and factual
accuracies in the rest of the book.

------
farrelmahaztra
The faux disclaimer at the start that “discourages” using SciHub to access the
paywalled articles was a nice touch to an otherwise excellent read

------
unmole
> Walker’s book has likely wasted thousands of hours of life and worsened the
> health of people who read it

How has it worsened the health of people?

~~~
guzey
See Section 2: [https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#no-a-good-night-s-
slee...](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#no-a-good-night-s-sleep-is-not-
always-beneficial-sleep-deprivation-therapy-in-depression)

------
lajosbacs
Thank you for this public service! I feel duped now after reading 1/3 of the
book.

------
roberson87
Wow.....super disappointed to say the least. I actually bought the audiobook
the other month and was looking to listening to it. I really enjoyed his
episode on Joe Rogan and was the only one I've ever listened to twice. I don't
understand why he would make up facts like fabricating statements from WHO?
These are amateur mistakes a smart man doesn't make, which I'm sure Walker is
(?). I haven't even finished reading this article but this part stood out:

"Walker’s book has likely wasted thousands of hours of life and worsened the
health of people who read it and took its recommendations at face value."

First part is dubious but second part, seriously? How can extra of sleep
"worsen" the health of people?

~~~
guzey
See Section 2: [https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#no-a-good-night-s-
slee...](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#no-a-good-night-s-sleep-is-not-
always-beneficial-sleep-deprivation-therapy-in-depression)

People for whom sleep deprivation therapy would be helpful but who decide to
avoid it due to Walker will have their health worsened by the book.

For a bit more speculative answer to this, see Section 14.1:
[https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-common-
object...](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-common-objections)

~~~
slothtrop
As per the person you quoted, you can't equivocate a good night's sleep with
"worsening someone's health" just because said person might alleviate
depressive symptoms with deprivation therapy. Those are not the same things.
Add to that, said restriction is not intended to be perpetual.

There are good points in your analysis but shall we discount yours entirely as
well for faults such as these?

~~~
guzey
"worsening someone's health" refers to not getting therapy you need, based on
Walker's misrepresentation. I believe this is exactly what I wrote in the
comment you were responding to.

~~~
slothtrop
I'm saying that's wrong.

There are measures to alleviate depression beyond sleep restriction, including
therapy, e.g. CBT, shown to be highly effective. A case of one not being
prescribed a brand of experimental therapy like sleep restriction is not
tantamount to withholding therapy "someone needs".

If that were the case you ought to hold the vast majority of psychiatrists to
that standard who opt to prescribe a cocktail of medication, not sleep
restriction, which is comparatively uncommon as a first measure.

And most importantly, because in such a scenario that sleep deprivation were
to be prescribed, it would not necessarily be eschewed over a fear of the
health effects of sleep deprivation in the short-term, a fear strongly
presumed to supplant for your point to stand. It's not uncommon for patients
to consume medications with negative side-effects, such as those that cause
liver, kidney damage.

By the same token, being underslept makes you feel like shit, makes it
difficult to focus, increases the risk of injury at work, on the road, etc.

