Reddit mentions of Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

It might seem surprising, but its true. If you read modern literature or papers on sleep you'll find that the consensus is that energy conservation is not the purpose of sleep.

Pulled from first paragraph on Wikipedia:


"Sleep is sometimes thought to help conserve energy, though this theory is not fully adequate as it only decreases metabolism by about 5–10%. Additionally it is observed that mammals require sleep even during the hypometabolic state of hibernation, in which circumstance it is actually a net loss of energy as the animal returns from hypothermia to euthermia in order to sleep.

Sleep is a heightened anabolic state, accentuating the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems."

This book is a relatively easy read and has a few sections dedicated to modern-day debate of sleep: http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Rules-Principles-Surviving-Thriving/dp/0979777747

Except for a correlation IS a relationship. Though I understand your need for research. I would recommend Spark by Dr. John Ratey and Brain Rules by John Medina. Here's a little web-based snippet of the Exercise chapter from Brain Rules.

That reminds me, there's a similar video summary of the Brain Rules book over here: http://vimeo.com/10954540

(and more info here)

Totally forgot about that one. It's cool, but you can pretty much get the whole gist of it just from those links.

And if anybody's craving more psych-y books, Subliminal is also pretty cool (it's like the diet version of Thinking Fast and Slow, which is good but long), though, the Willpower Instinct one already kinda touches on a bit of material from both those anyway.

Come over to /r/stopsmoking :)

After giving it some thought, I do have a suggestion: Brain Rules

In the same vein of how our brains work and how we can use that knowledge in our every day lives.

Brain Rules

This is a good book, not just for short term memory improvement but understanding how our brain process things, stores information and how you can improve this.

1. The Power of Habit- explains the science behind habits, the human brain and the "keystone" habits that can change your life.
   
   
2. The Black Swan- will have you rethink your perception of reality and whether your choices are hardwired.
   
   
3. Willpower Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength
   
   
4. Brain Rules by John Medina written by a neauroscientist, awesome book read one chapter at a time.