Years ago, a New York Times reader asked if – as a parent – they should prioritize sleep or exercise? The response was that this is a false choice. As healthy humans, we need both. I ugly cried.

The colonel in my head said buck up, you’re just tired. The ice-cream connoisseur in me balked – the thought of getting up at an unreasonable hour to exercise was literally (and not millennial literally) painful. Wake up? For what? Exercise? Pfft.

Turns out my unreasonable blubbering, my fetal position, the tears, the pain, the inability to muster movement, the pint of Chubby Hubby awaiting my attention, my expanding love handles, etc., etc. all had scientific credibility and all led back to my lack of sleep.

But wait, you say! This email is supposed to be about parenting, yeah? Okay. Getting there. Matthew Walker's book on the science of Why We Sleep covers scientifically proven ways adequate sleep improves our lives while also explaining my drama-student reaction ☝️. I (and I think Walker) would argue sleep is fundamental to our ability to show up as parents and partners. Oh and our kid’s ability to thrive.

So, let’s all put on our sleep masks. Put in the ear plugs. Put down the Instagram machine. And Go. The F*ck. To Sleep. So that we may do the hard work of eating ice cream on the treadmill.

​Why We Sleep was filled with so many compelling factoids (backed by 17k peer reviewed studies), that I opted for bullet points in three categories: physical health, brain health, and learning & creativity.

Physical Health:

• Perpetual sleep deprivation (defined as getting 7 hours of sleep or less/night) is associated with a shorter life span (by, like, several years).
• Getting enough sleep (8+ hours) lowers one's risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes.
• Getting enough sleep is essential to a robust immune system. People who get 8+ hours of sleep had 66% fewer colds. In a dramatic study, people who sleep less than 8 hours a night the week before a flu vaccine were 50% more likely to get the flu.
• Sleep deprivation is worse for mental faculties than drinking. An estimated 1.2 million accidents in the US are caused by falling asleep at the wheel, exceeding the number of drunk driving accidents.
• Sleep deprivation is associated with spikes in stress hormones and reductions in other hormones. This yields unpleasant effects like increased weight gain, burning lean muscle mass rather than fat with exercise, lessened ability to govern food consumption, gastrointestinal problems resulting from and increase in 'bad' gut bacteria, as well as a 50-80% increase in infertility (and not just because people are too tired to get bussssaaaayyyyy).

Brain Health:

• The connection between sleep and mental health has a lot to do with the relationship between the amygdala (the primal brain) and the prefrontal cortex (responsible for heavy lifting like predicting consequences, impulse control, focusing attention). When we get enough sleep, there is a natural feedback loop between the two parts of the brain. The amygdala sends up flairs, warning us of potential danger to our survival. The cool, calm & collected prefrontal cortex says, "Take a deep breath, let's go check this out. You're safe. Amygdala, cool it." In our sleep-deprived brain, this connection gets fuzzy, like a thermostat with an ice pack sitting on it. In studies, the broken feedback loop led to a 60% amplification in emotional reactivity, meaning waaaay more anger and aggression, waaay more sadness, waaay more anxiety as well as a lower ability to feel pleasure. Keep this in mind the next time you think about telling your partner that they’re, “just tired” and the next time your partner tells you, “you’re just tired.”
• Addictive tendencies flare when the wires between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex are frizzled by less sleep.
• I'll admit that the science behind this one went over my head, but it turns out that our brains do a tremendous amount of emotional learning with a good night's sleep. When something hurtful occurs during the day, a good night's sleep adds a positive narrative around the experience. This narrative allows for learning and growing rather than ruminative loops. I've said this in every wedding speech I've ever given: 'never go to bed angry' is perhaps the worst marital advice. Get a good night's sleep, talk about it in the morning. Also, Stacy, I love you so much <ugly cry>. It isn't just the…🍸🍸🍸…
• Walker estimates that as many as 50% of ADHD diagnoses are more accurately defined as behavioral issues because of a sleep disorder. In a study where children had inflamed tonsils removed (inflamed tonsils can cause sleep apnea and poor sleep), the overwhelming majority had symptoms of ADHD disappear.
• I'm not sure this next bullet point belongs under mental health, but….people with adequate levels of sleep were perceived as more attractive compared to their le tired selves.

Learning and Creativity:

• The early night stages of NREM sleep (and naps) are associated with better memorization, fact retention and memory solidification. In one study, having enough NREM sleep led to a 20% (!!!) advantage in fact retention. Please get a good night sleep after reading this email.
• REM sleep, which happens in the early mornings, is associated with better social and emotional navigation and increased creative thinking by forging synapsis and making connections from past knowledge.
• REM sleep also helps solidify motor skills like riding a bike or learning the Shuffle Dance, creating shinier, happier people.

Here is the experts' advice on how to get better/more sleep 😴😴😴:

1. Make sure your kids are sleeping well and not kicking you in the head throughout the night. Walker actively avoids the discussion of how to get kids to sleep other than to practice having them fall asleep by themselves (i.e., not rocking or feeding to sleep) by putting them in their crib, drowsy but awake. If that ship has sailed, some of the tips below can be helpful for your littles.
2. Limit alcohol consumption. If I'm being honest, Walker's recommendation is NO alcohol, but I couldn't bring myself to type that…. Am-I-right Stacy? Alcohol is associated w/ 10-20% less REM sleep.
3. Ditch the sleeping pills, which mess up the natural stages of sleep.
4. Limit caffeine to before noon. For many people, it takes 8+ hours for caffeine to leave the body.
5. Practice box breathing: breath in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, out for 7 seconds (this is amazingly effective…most nights I can’t get past 7 sets of these).
6. ​Meditation: I love this meditation by Tara Brach, which some kids respond well to. For younger kids a basic mediation of tightening and relaxing parts of their body followed by big ‘tummy’ breaths. Ask kids to find the parts of their body that are not ready for sleep and ask them to have those parts lay down and relax in a hammock and take big belly breaths.
7. ​Sleep mask: I have gifted this over 30 times – particularly useful for us Seattleites that have long summer days. I now have an almost Pavlovian reaction to this.
8. Consider a hot bath, which brings blood to the surface and releases heat. One study found that a hot bath led participants to fall asleep quicker and have 10-15% deeper NREM sleep (the study was on adults, but duh to this working for kids). If no bath is in your future, make sure your room is cool. Like Alex says:

So, are you getting enough sleep? Are your kids getting enough sleep? Adults need EIGHT hours of sleep. The science of sleep has proven over and over that there are more people struck by lightning than those that require less than eight hours of sleep. Below are daily AAP sleep recommendations by age.

• Ages 4-12 months: 12-16 hours (including naps)
• Ages 1-2 years: 11-14 hours (including naps)
• Ages 3-5 years: 10-13 hours (including naps)
• Age 6-12 years: 9-12 hours
• Age 13-18 years: 8-10 hours
• Age 19-dinosaur years: 8 hours

As Walker points out, if a pharmaceutical company were to come up with a drug that had all the benefits of sleep, it would be a trillion-dollar company. And while sleep is free, it is not always easy, there is the matter of working and laundry and getting those tiny humans to fall asleep; it is still much, much easier than the consequences of not sleeping.

If you want more from Walker, here is a quick podcast or his audiobook.

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