Sleep, by Nick Littlehales.
I asked for it for Christmas, and got it, after hearing something about it on the back of presumably the same round of media appearances.
It’s pretty interesting, but it didn’t stop me falling asleep in the middle of reading it. Maybe I was reading between the lines.
Gist of it is, 8 hours is an urban myth, you need multiples of 90 minutes, 35 of them over the course of a week, including naps, or “controlled rest periods”. So you can have fewer hours’ sleep per night and more naps, if that works better for you.
A fair bit of common sense in it. Detox your bedroom, no devices with their unhelpful blue light 90 mins before bedtime, clean bedlinen, room not too warm, lie on your side, cut down your caffeine intake.
The stuff about the work he does with top athletes is fascinating.
e.g. Chris Hoy or Team Sky might be staying in a five star hotel room with plush goosedown beds up the wazoo, but they kip on the floor on a bespoke “sleep kit”, a sort of mattress topper thing.
