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Yet sleep has persisted. Heroically so. Indeed, every animal species carefully studied to date sleeps.^III This suggests that sleep evolved with—or very soon after—life itself on our planet.

The reason sleep deprivation is not a commonly used treatment, however, is that as soon as these individuals do sleep, the antidepressant benefit typically goes away. As a result, sleep deprivation alone is not a realistic or comprehensive therapy option.

Approximately 45 percent of these patients will feel better after a night without sleep.

Based on a rich, new scientific understanding of sleep, we no longer have to ask what sleep is good for. Instead, we are now forced to wonder whether there are any biological functions that do not benefit by a good night’s sleep.

Routinely sleeping less than six hours a night weakens your immune system, substantially increasing your risk of certain forms of cancer.

There’s been a pernicious erosion of sleep time throughout the past 50 years [i.e. between 1969 and 2019]

Sleepless in America, National Geographic, http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/sleepless-in-america/episode/sleepless-in-america.

[T]he prevailing belief [is] that FFI patients ultimately die of neural degeneration

[T]here is a very rare genetic disorder that starts with a progressive insomnia, emerging in midlife [fatal familial insomnia (FFI)]. Several months into the disease course, the patient stops sleeping altogether. By this stage, they have started to lose many basic brain and body functions. No drugs that we currently have will help the patient sleep. After twelve to eighteen months of no sleep, the patient will die. Though exceedingly rare, this disorder asserts that a lack of sleep can kill a human being.

Kushida, C. Encyclopedia of Sleep, Volume 1 (Elsever, [sic] 2013)

[E]very species studied to date sleeps

[C]onsidering its safety, this technique [sleep deprivation] can now be considered among the first-line antidepressant treatment strategies for patients affected by mood disorders. …

SD is the only established antidepressant therapy that acts within hours, and therefore, can be applied in patients with treatment-resistant depression with a chance of approximately 50% of seeing an immediate, although temporary, relief from depressive symptoms without major side effects. … The experience of realizing that depression can be lifted and sleep can improve is very important for the further therapy motivation of treatment resistant depressed patients. … [Sleep deprivation] can be combined with antidepressant medication, predominantly serotonergic agents, with bright light therapy and with a phase advance of sleep cycles. All these strategies have been able to provide a chance to stabilize the SD response, at least in a subgroup of patients.

The rapid effect of SD on depressive mood within hours is a fascinating experience for the patient, who may have been depressed for weeks or months …

The observation that after the recovery night a great majority of SD responders relapse into depression suggests that sleep per se may have a depressiogenic property.

Approximately 30 to 40 percent of these patients will feel better after a night without sleep. … [T]he 60 to 70 percent of patients who do not respond to the sleep deprivation will actually feel worse, deepening their depression. As a result, sleep deprivation is not a realistic or comprehensive therapy option.

Approximately 30 to 40 percent of these patients will feel better after a night without sleep … the 60 to 70 percent of patients who do not respond to the sleep deprivation will actually feel worse, deepening their depression. As a result, sleep deprivation is not a realistic or comprehensive therapy option.

[W]e are now forced to wonder whether there are any biological functions that do not benefit by a good night’s sleep. So far, the results of thousands of studies insist that no, there aren’t.

[T]he popular expectation that short sleep is correlated with short life span and long sleep with greater longevity is not supported by the existing literature.

the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span

Unfortunately, the real evidence that makes clear all of the dangers that befall individuals and societies when sleep becomes short have not been clearly telegraphed to the public. It is perhaps the most glaring omission in the contemporary health conversation. In response, this book is intended to help address this unmet need, and provide what I hope is a fascinating journey of discoveries. It aims to revise our cultural appreciation of sleep, and reverse our neglect of it.

When [an explanation] solves all problems in a single domain–or at least can do so–it has universal reach within that domain. That is universality.

The change of motion is proportional to the applied driving force, and occurs along the straight line with respect to which the force is itself exerted.

The discovery of the laws of dynamics, or the laws of motion, was a dramatic moment in the history of science. Before Newton’s time, the motions of things like planets were a mystery, but after Newton there was complete understanding. Eve slight deviations from Kepler’s laws, due to the perturbations of the planets, were computable. The motions of pendulums, oscillators…could all be analyzed completely after Newton’s laws were enunciated.

He had never felt so helpless, so powerless, so close to despair.