Sleep Groove: Why Your Sleep Rhythm Is So Messed Up and What You Can Do about It

The Sleep Groove is Why We Sleep meets what if?--an accessible, engaging tour of sleep and circadian science from an expert. With a sleep-wonk’s attention to detail tempered by approachable illustrations and doodles, The Sleep Groove gets into the nitty gritty of what we know about how and why we sleep. This myth-busting guide to sleep is the perfect introduction to how circadian science can demystify your nights and help reset your days.

The Sleep Groove introduces readers to the easy-to-understand but often misunderstood concepts and science behind circadian rhythms and how changes in daily habits can greatly improve one’s sleep patterns and quality of life. Through conversational writing, charts, graphs, and even comics, this book helps explain the nuances of sleep using the latest in sleep research and technology, delving into sleep-related issues like daylights savings time, how our smart devices affect our sleep, the science and effectiveness of sleep-tracking devices, light sensitivity, jet lag, napping, and many other topics.

This fascinating illustrated guide to all things sleep takes aim at many of our long-held myths surrounding sleep and provides an easy-to-understand guide to what exactly is going on in the third of our lives we spend sleeping. The book also explores interesting questions such as: Do we really need eight hours of sleep each night? What happens if you stay awake for 205 hours? Is REM sleep the only kind of sleep that matters? For anyone who has wondered why their sleep is so weird and what they can do about it, this book is the perfect ticket to finding your own personal sleep groove.

Dr. Olivia Walch is a researcher in the University of Michigan Department of Neurology and the CEO of Arcascope, a sleep and circadian rhythms technology business. Her research papers on sleep have been cited hundreds of times, been published in publications including The Atlantic, and she has been Principal Investigator on ＄2.2m worth of NIH grants, and her customers include the U.S. Navy. Through her company, she has a number of sleep-centric businesses in her network including ResMed, SleepScore Labs, and Philips.

Outside of sleep research, she illustrated, contributed to, and co-edited the volume Political Geometry, on the mathematics of gerrymandering, from Birkhäuser, and has been a regular contributor to The Nib. She is also the cartoonist of Imogen Quest, her webcomic which won her the ＂America’s Next Great Cartoonist＂ prize from the Washington Post. She has also authored a comic called You Can Try Again, published by Silver Sprocket.