told me nights are killing me, in bold, repeatedly, and offered me nothing except stop working nights

look. I work nights. that is not a lifestyle choice, that is the job, and somebody has to do it or people lie in the dark on their own.

so reading a book that spends chapter after chapter telling me, with graphs, that shift work is a carcinogen and takes years off you, and then offering nothing at all except go to bed at ten, was a strange experience. I already knew. every nurse knows. we say it to each other in the break room like it's a joke and it isn't a joke.

the science bits I did like. how memory settles overnight, the dreaming chapter, anaesthesia not actually being sleep, all of that was new to me and I brought it up at work and we had a proper argument about it over a trolley of cold toast. so its not a nothing book.

but the tone. it is so certain about everything. and then a good while later there was all that business about people going through the numbers and finding claims that didnt hold up, and I dont have the expertise to judge any of that, I only know it made me trust the confident bits a lot less in hindsight.

1. two or three useful chapters, an awful lot of finger wagging, and no practical help whatsoever for the people who cannot do the one thing he says to do. I did buy better blackout curtains off the back of it though. thats something