Matthew Walker’s new TED Talk, Sleep is your superpower (below), is another in a long line of research-backed publications highlighting the life-altering benefits of sufficient sleep. It still seems strange to me that it has taken so long for the points outlined by Walker and other sleep experts to become embraced and supported in a widespread manner. Instead it seems that we still highlight the grit of someone who can burn the candle at both ends and still seemingly function at a high level. We still poke fun at the person who goes to bed early and can’t keep up with the latest on Game of Thrones or whatever the latest must-watch primetime series might be.

The highlights of Walker’s TED Talk were outlined in a recent Wired article titled You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep—and It’s Killing You. While I recommend watching the video above and/or reading the entire article, here are a few takeaways from the article:

“The decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, even the safety and education of our children. It’s a silent sleep loss epidemic. It’s fast becoming one of the greatest challenges we face in the 21st century” 

“…all the ways in which sleep deprivation hurts people: it makes you dumber, more forgetful, unable to learn new things, more vulnerable to dementia, more likely to die of a heart attack, less able to fend off sickness with a strong immune system, more likely to get cancer, and it makes your body literally hurt more. Lack of sleep distorts your genes, and increases your risk of death generally…”

“Don’t drink caffeine or alcohol. Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning (even on the weekends). Sleep in a cool room.“