The Oxford Handbook of Sleep and Sleep Disorders

Sleep is one of life's fundamental requirements, and like oxygen, water, and food, we simply cannot live without it. Sleep is essential for tissue repair, metabolism, growth, infection control, and for learning, memory, and emotional regulation. Moreover, these critical functions of sleep remain true across the lifespan. In many ways sleep is nature's medicine; it is what nature has provided to deliver daytime functioning and to maintain health and wellbeing. The Oxford Handbook of Sleep and Sleep Disorders has been carefully collated by its internationally renowned editors to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to our understanding of sleep and circadian processes, and of the clinical disorders of sleep and sleep-wake regulation. The handbook therefore covers what sleep is and why it matters, but also explains the disorders of sleep, and how they can be assessed, differentiated, and treated. Comprising 46 chapters, each written by leading experts in their field, the handbook is organized around four sections: 1. the fundamentals of sleep and circadian processes; 2. the roles and functions of sleep; 3. societal factors influencing sleep; and 4. disorders of sleep and circadian function. This final section is further subdivided into several components including epidemiology, classification, and assessment; management and treatment; and lifespan issues and special populations. Taken together the handbook offers clinicians and scientists the most contemporary and authoritative single resource for clinical practice and for research in the developing fields of sleep science and sleep medicine.

Colin A. Espie is Professor of Sleep Medicine in the Sleep & Circadian Neuroscience Institute, University of Oxford. He is Founding Director of Experimental and Clinical Sleep Medicine research, and Clinical Director of the Oxford Online Programme in Sleep Medicine. He is also Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Glasgow. He is internationally known for his work on insomnia and its treatment, using cognitive behavioral therapeutics (CBTx), with a focus on making effective therapy available at scale. He has published more than 300 scientific papers and several textbooks and has many professional commitments to national and international sleep societies and journals. He co-founded Big Health, developer of Sleepio™, a CBTx program for insomnia, now widely available in NHS-UK and in US healthcare systems. Phyllis C. Zee is the Benjamin and Virginia T. Boshes Professor in Neurology and Professor of Neurobiology at Northwestern University, as well as Director of the Center for Circadian & Sleep Medicine (CCSM) and Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. She oversees an interdisciplinary program in translational sleep and circadian rhythm research and a central theme of her research program is understanding the role of circadian-sleep interactions on the expression and development of cardiometabolic and neurologic disorders. She has published more than 300 scientific papers and findings from her team have paved the way for innovative approaches to improve sleep and circadian health. Charles M. Morin is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Sleep Research Centre at Université Laval in Quebec City. He holds a Canada Research Chair on behavioral sleep medicine. Professor Morin is a world leader on insomnia research. He has been at the forefront of new developments on behavioral approaches to treating insomnia and studying the natural history of insomnia with its risk factors and long-term consequences. He has held several leadership positions in the field of sleep medicine, including as President of the World Sleep Society and the Canadian Sleep Society. He is currently an Associate Editor for the journals SLEEP and for Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Professor Morin has published 10 books and more than 300 articles, and these writings have been instrumental in enhancing the standards of clinical care for patients affected with sleep disorders.