A Good Night’s Sleep By Lawrence J Epstein, M.D.               McGraw Hill 2007 Other than air, food and water, sleep is the most essential necessity for our health and well-being.  And yet, it’s one of the most neglected aspects of the North American lifestyle.  We’re a sleep-deprived society and it’s costing us (in terms of health, safety, productivity, stress and even happiness.)  Dr. Lawrence Epstein’s new book is one of the best I’ve read on this topic.  The full title is “The Harvard Medical School Guide to A Good Night’s Sleep: What a Harvard Doctor Wants You to Know!” Dr. Epstein starts by grabbing our attention with a few statistics.  For example, Americans average 6.9 hours of sleep a night (most of us need eight), and 100,000 highway crashes each year are caused by drowsy drivers.  He then describes the five stages of sleep, noting that deep sleep restores the body while REM (or dream) sleep restores the mind and facilitates learning and memory – students, take note!  The book is full of interesting and important factoids.  For example, sleep deprivation has a similar effect on co-ordination and reaction time to being intoxicated.  And for weight watchers, note that researchers have found a correlation between constant sleep debt and obesity – lack of sleep decreases the hormone leptin, which regulates appetite.  The author explains the science of sleep (e.g. light is the key factor influencing sleep, affecting production of melatonin, the brain’s natural sleep hormone).   He tells us how much sleep we need at different ages, explores and explodes some popular myths (e.g. that you need less sleep as you get older and that alcohol helps you sleep better).  He outlines a six-step plan for a good night’s sleep and devotes several chapters to sleep disorders and their treatment.  Insomnia is explored with chapters on both behavioral treatment and an up-to-the minute chapter on the use of medications.  Snoring, Sleep Apnea, Restless Legs Syndrome and Narcolepsy all have their own chapters. So do parasomnias such as sleepwalking.  Another chapter is called “Challenging Sleep Situations: Jet Lag, Shift Work and Drowsy Driving.”  Should you “co-sleep” with your infant children?  What’s the latest on bed-wetting?  It’s all here in a chapter on children and sleep.  Lastly there’s a chapter on health conditions and medications that disrupt sleep.  If this book sounds extremely comprehensive, it is.  If it sounds like it must be a fat textbook, it isn’t.  It’s a well laid out 260 pages.   It’s easy to read and understand, a fact-filled and fascinating book about a subject that is crucial to all of us.  It’s also a topic we ignore at our peril.   “A Good Night’s Sleep” is an excellent resource, a well-written book and a wellspring of fascinating information.  I highly recommend it.