Penguin presents the audiobook model of As to why Can’t We Sleep by Darian Head.

One in four adults sleeps badly. Sleeping pill prescriptions have elevated dramatically during the last three years and our bookshelves and browser histories are littered with experts guaranteeing to ‘fix’ our sleeping disorders.

But is this so-called sleep problems anything new? Our romantic relationship to sleep has always been irregular and changeable, variously shaped by sociable conventions, industrial imperatives and personal psychologies. Look under the headlines and it appears that there is absolutely no such factor as an ideal night’s sleep.

Here Darian Innovator reveals the history and pathology of sleeplessness – from the commercial revolution to Freudian wish analysis to the fears around blue light in our phones. Along the way, he dispels the pervasive common myths and anxieties for this most universal individual experience.