Friday, April 22, 2016

Why We Sleep: A TED Talk

Why We Sleep

Russell Foster studies sleep. In fact, he's a circadian neuroscientist, which means he studies what happens to the brain when it does - and doesn't - sleep. This entertaining talk, just under twenty-two minutes in length, covers a range of sleep-related topics from the amount of sleep people typically got before the invention of the lightbulb (hint: a lot more than we get now) to dangers of depriving teenagers of their bed rest. Along the way, Foster asks and tries to answer, the age-old question of why we sleep and explores the relationship of interrupted sleep cycles with mental illness. Subtitles for the talk are available in 36 languages

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

1 comment:

Ranjana Rajendran said...

Freakonomics also had two episodes on sleep last summer.

These episodes cover issues that could be used in a psychology classroom in the Altered States Unit but also "Research Methods" (sleep studies validity/reliability), "Social Psychology" (social justice of sleep), and "Learning" (sleep habits). Good stuff!