Growing up, if there's one thing this writer disliked, it was bedtime. Somehow, it felt very adult-like to be up until midnight, and so, we always had an ammo of excuses to avoid hitting the sack anytime earlier. That's probably a bad idea, feels Alice Gregory, an expert on sleep, whose new book, Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave (Bloomsbury Books) offers interesting insights into how sleep evolves throughout our waking life—from infancy to old-age—and the constant challenges to it.

Gregory, who has been researching sleep for more than a decade, and is currently a professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, got interested in the subject during her undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford. "I was attending a lecture by a sleep expert. She pointed out that sleep is often neglected, but is important for multiple aspects of our lives. The more I thought about it, the more this made sense and it left me surprised that I hadn't learned much about this before. I wanted to learn more and was left convinced that sleep should be given greater attention when we study psychology," she shares in an email interview.

Though we are always told to "get enough rest," alternative messaging like "sleep is for wimps", "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "money never sleeps," has challenged this narrative one time too many. "Certain people in power are reported to get little sleep, including Angela Merkel and Donald Trump. Some people take away the message that if they want to get ahead in life, they should work longer days and sleep less, but this does not necessarily follow." In fact, she says, missing out on sleep can lead to difficulties.