Sleep Hygiene
Anne Diamond
How important is sleep. That’s a statement rather than a question.
As someone who has spent many years doing shift work (getting up at 2am for breakfast TV for nearly ten years) I’ve always been fascinated by sleep and the lack of it, and how sleep management can really change your life. My guest today has devoted much of his career to sleep – and is evangelical about its properties. He’s Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University, Russell Foster, and he says our 24/7 society is British in its attitude to sleep – and that we should all rethink the way we live our lives, build our houses, design our bedrooms and even run our schools.
For instance, teenagers really do need to get up later in the mornings, and stay up later at night – and in trials where schools have started later in the day, youngsters’ performance has been dramatically enhanced – truancy has gone down, self-harming has reduced and grades have improved.
We should all address our sleep hygiene, apparently. That is, allow more time for sleep, kick the media out of our bedrooms, sleep in a dark and cool environment etc. For more, listen to Russell’s TED talk on the internet.
