My next TED Talk is Why Do We Sleep. I chose this Talk because I wanted to know why we do one of my favorite things in the world. This Talk is done by a circadian neuroscientist named Russell Foster. (A circadian neuroscientist is a person who studies the sleep cycles of the brain.)
Foster starts off his talk by telling us that if you are an average person, 36% of your life is spent sleeping. Therefore if you live to be 90, then you have slept 32 years at that point. I think that this is phenomenal! The amount of time you are sleeping is more than a 3rd of your life. Foster goes on and tells us the history of peoples feelings toward sleep. He says that people during Elizabethan times would cherish sleep and Shakespeare wrote about how precious sleep is. But after about 400 years Thomas Edison said that sleep is a waste of time. This shows how the thoughts and feelings about sleep change as time moves on. After this he talks about the brain and the reactions that go on to get us to sleep. He says that if we don't get enough sleep, then our body starts to degenerate and some of our most basic functions such as thinking start to be affected. We should all get sleep because it is important to our daily lives. Scientists have not come to a consensus about why we sleep. But Russell Foster tells us three of the ideas they have. The three ideas on why we sleep are: restoration, energy conservation, and brain function. The first one is about restoring our energy and making us feel better. The second is about sleeping to save calories he does not agree with this one. The third idea is about how the brain processes help memory and brain function. Teenagers are supposed to get at least nine hours of sleep a night but the average teenager gets around 5 hours of sleep. Resulting in sleep depravation which is very bad for our bodies and can cause grades and productivity levels to decrease. When you lack sleep you have poor memory, stress, poor creativity, increased impulsiveness, poor judgement, etc. so get as much sleep as you can. This is why we all sleep. I really enjoyed this video because it helped me realize why I am always so annoyed with everyone. I need more sleep to be the person that I want to be. Thank you for reading.
2 Comments
Marissa Williamson
5/11/2015 04:04:35 am
That's really interesting about if you live to be 90, you have slept 32 years in your life. I didn't know that.
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Cheyenne
5/12/2015 04:08:05 am
I've never really thought about how much sleep affects us, so I found it really interesting to learn how much it contributes to our daily lives. I also didn't know that you spend so much time sleeping. I really liked your reflection.
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