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A new book by Oxford neuroscientist Russell Foster called Lifetime, Your Body Clock and its essential roles in good health and sleep. It turns out people who slept for four hours have a higher rate of car accidents than if they were legally drunk. American culture has a troubled relationship with sleep. Thomas Jefferson slept sitting up so he could leap out of bed after just a few hours. Edgar Allan Poe complained, sleep those little slices of death, how I loathe them. And Thomas Edison reportedly dismissed sleep as quote,. a criminal waste of time and a heritage from our cave days.

Sleep can enhance your creativity, lift your spirits, improve your sense of humor, and amplify your sociability. So why do so many of us struggle to get a good night's rest? Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford, says it's because we've let the frantic drumbeat of modern life drown out the steady tick-tock of our biological clocks. That's the bad news. The good news is that Russell's here to share science-backed tips that will have you catching more z's in no time.

Russell's new book is "Life Time: Your Body Clock and Its Essential Roles in Good Health and Sleep."

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