Life Time by Russell Foster

LIFE TIME by Russell Foster, professor of Circadian Neuroscience, at the University of Oxford, offer insights about “Your Body Clock and Its Essential Roles in Good Health and Sleep.” Foster has over forty years of experience as a scientist in this field and he explicitly sets out to explain the intertwining of body clocks and sleep in “a format that is fun and easy to read.”  He has certainly made an effort to group like topics (e.g., when to take drugs or eating times) together and the text is generally more accessible than I had anticipated. However, he has to rely on an alphabet soup of abbreviations and on scientific terms which make the reading difficult in places. There is a helpful glossary and Foster offers some amusing anecdotes in an effort to lighten the load. I also liked the reassuring tone (e.g., "we should stop worrying about our sleep and accept that 'different' is not necessarily worse"). I skimmed several chapters like The Day Within or Seven Ages of Sleep and appreciated that he concluded each with some layperson questions. In addition, the use of bullet points or maybe an outline of “key takeaways” after each chapter could have been a useful improvement. More specific action steps (e.g., get children outside in bright light to reduce the chance of myopia or near-sightedness) and information on implementation (what does bright-light therapy look like at nursing homes?) seemed vague or missing. The connections between sleep and circadian rhythms is an extremely interesting topic and Foster adds to engagement by including an Appendix with suggestions for developing a sleep diary; he also includes a Chronotype Questionnaire to help his readers determine if they are more of a “morning” or “evening” person. LIFE TIME deals with important health-related topics and is worth a look. My favorite quote? “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ~Marie Skłodowska-Curie