My Top 10 Sleep Books on World Book Day
- Sophie Bostock, PhD
- Mar 4, 2021
- 2 min read
In honour of World Book Day, thought I'd pick out my current top 10 books on sleep, and sleep science.. it's a changing feast but there are some classics and some newbies in here...
On the top? The first ever sleep book I read, and still a bit of a bible. If you are looking for a structured approach to coping with insomnia, Colin Espie's 'Overcoming Insomnia' tells you how to do it - and was the foundation of the digital Sleepio programme.
You'll also see a very well thumbed copy of @lindageddes.science 'Chasing the Sun' which explains the extraordinary power of sunlight.
'Rest' by @askpang is all about the importance of pausing and rest, as well as sleep, for our creativity and productivity. (Also great on Audible).
'The Sleep Solution' by Chris Winter @sportsleepdoc does what it says on the tin, but makes you smile as well. Bonus.
In 'The Nocturnal Brain' , Guy Leschziner delves into the science behind more unusual sleep disorders, exploring sleep through his patients' eyes.
'Why We Sleep' by Matthew Walker is a thorough and occasionally scary best seller about all the stuff sleep does for you.. I recommend you sort out your sleep with the other books first!!
'The Circadian Code' by @satchin.panda explains why respecting our circadian rhythms, optimized for action by day and rest at night, is a winner not only for sleep, but also for health and wellbeing.
Ferber and Owens/Mindell are trusted voices in the kids sleep space. My other favourite is 'What to do when you Dread your Bed' by Dawn Huebner which is a great read for school age kids to help cope with night time fears and busy brains..
There are so many awesome reads on this topic. What have I missed?? There are plenty more in my bookshelf.. I suspect next year's top 10 will have a few tweaks! :-)
Sophie's reading list is spot on — Why We Sleep and Chasing the Sun really did change how I think about light and bedtime. As someone who reads a lot of paper-based research, I find myself leaning on an image-to-text OCR tool to quickly pull quotes out of scanned book pages and PDF excerpts, so I can keep notes searchable instead of buried in folders. Adding The Circadian Code to my queue after this.
What a thoughtful list, Sophie — Why We Sleep really did shift how I think about screens before bed, and I finally got round to picking up Chasing the Sun too. Lately I've been noticing how much physical comfort shapes the first few minutes of sleep, even the small stuff like wearing a bra that actually fits. A bra size calculator turned out to be genuinely useful for getting that right without the changing-room guesswork. Adding The Circadian Code to my queue next.
JLBDT kept getting mentioned, so I opened it up out of curiosity and just poked around the interface for a minute. I wasn’t signing up or testing anything, more like seeing if it’s annoying to navigate or not. Honestly, it felt pretty easy to move around—menus are right where you expect them, and I didn’t get stuck trying to find my way back. The pages also look pretty tidy on mobile, with info broken into clear sections instead of one long messy wall of text. When you scroll, the headings and those grouped content blocks make it obvious what you’re looking at.
https://ball88.space/ mình vào thử cho biết vì thấy bạn bè nhắc, tưởng sẽ rối mà hóa ra nhìn khá dễ chịu. Trang kiểu tối giản, vào là thấy phần sảnh/lobby được ưu tiên nên các khối nội dung nằm gọn gàng, lướt xuống không bị “ngợp” bởi quá nhiều thứ chen nhau. Mình có để ý họ có đoạn nói về truy cập an toàn, có nhắc tới VPN 1.1.1.1 nên ai hay bị chặn mạng chắc đọc qua sẽ hiểu ngay chứ không phải mò mẫm. Mấy tiêu đề mục đặt to rõ, chia cụm theo dạng block nên kéo nhanh vẫn nắm được mình đang ở phần nào của trang. Menu với các heading nhìn phát là biết…
What a thoughtful list, Sophie — Why We Sleep and Chasing the Sun were eye-openers for me too. Whenever friends ask for sleep recommendations, I usually send them the actual research papers, and a tool like PDF to Link makes it easy to turn those files into clean shareable links instead of bulky attachments. Adding The Circadian Code to my reading queue.