"There's A Siesta For A Reason!"

This is one of the most thought-provoking and informative pieces I've read about sleep. It helps that the interviewee is Daniel Gartenberg, a sleep scientist and professor of biobehavioural health at Penn State University, who offers not only data about happens in our brains and bodies when we sleep, but also uses a language that everybody can understand. The questions he answers range from the stages of sleep and the function of each of them, to the circadian rhythm, to the way society today is impacting our sleep and whether modern technology (like trackers, wearables) helps us get a better sleep, all the way to more personal issues, my favourite being: 

"But if I try to take a powernap at lunch and can’t get to sleep, haven’t I just wasted 20 minutes of my day that I could have been meditating—or working?"

What's more, the interview busts some sleep myths and lists a few tips for sleeping better. 

A few things that stayed with me, from the top of my mind: you can take a test to find out if you're a short sleeper (meaning you don't need as much sleep as the rest of the population): "People should be able to sleep like they’re able to get healthcare"; we have genes that dictate if we're a morning or a night person; sleep deprivation could work as a method of activating one's fight-or-flight response in cases of severe depression.