BEST Matthew Walker Books & Quotes of All Time (March 2023)

by Arthur Worsley
M.A. Psychology, Oxford. McKinsey Alum. Founder & Editor at TAoL.

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Contents

1. Who Is Matthew Walker?

2. The Best Matthew Walker Books of All Time

3. More Books Like Matthew Walker's Books

4. Best Matthew Walker Quotes

5. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Who Is Matthew Walker?

Matthew Walker is an English scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his best-selling book Why We Sleep.

Learn more about Matthew Walker

The Best Matthew Walker Books of All Time

Why these best Matthew Walker books and not others? To stay objective, I rank all my book recommendations by a combination of what’s most loved (Goodreads rating), what’s most popular (Goodreads review count) and what’s proven timlessly relevant (first publication date).

This isn’t a whimsical list. It’s a data-driven, crowdsourced collection of the best Matthew Walker books ever published as decided by book lovers like you.

And if you think something's missing? I LOVE book recommendations so if there are any other books by Matthew Walker that you think deserve mentioning, email me and I’ll be sure to include them in the next round of updates.

Until then, here are the best Matthew Walker books of all time...

Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker (FREE Summary)

Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Why We Sleep is a fascinating and accessible guide to what sleep is, why sleep matters and how to optimise your sleep habits to live longer, feel happier and set your life up for success - by sleep scientist and best-selling author, Matthew Walker.

Published 2017 // 368 pages // Rated 4.4 over 123,500 reviews on Goodreads

See all Matthew Walker's books on Amazon
Visit Matthew Walker's Goodreads profile

More Books Like Matthew Walker's Books

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Best Matthew Walker Quotes

Here are some of the best Matthew Walker of all time...

"The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"Practice does not make perfect. It is practice, followed by a night of sleep, that leads to perfection."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"Humans are not sleeping the way nature intended. The number of sleep bouts, the duration of sleep, and when sleep occurs has all been comprehensively distorted by modernity."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"After thirty years of intensive research, we can now answer many of the questions posed earlier. The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours. Three full nights of recovery sleep (i.e., more nights than a weekend) are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping. Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. The leading causes of disease and death in developed nations—diseases that are crippling health-care systems, such as heart disease, obesity, dementia, diabetes, and cancer—all have recognized causal links to a lack of sleep."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day - Mother Nature's best effort yet at contra-death."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"It is disquieting to learn that vehicular accidents caused by drowsy driving exceed those caused by alcohol and drugs combined."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

"Caffeine has an average half-life of five to seven hours. Let’s say that you have a cup of coffee after your evening dinner, around 7:30 p.m. This means that by 1:30 a.m., 50 percent of that caffeine may still be active and circulating throughout your brain tissue. In other words, by 1:30 a.m., you’re only halfway to completing the job of cleansing your brain of the caffeine you drank after dinner."

- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

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