THE MORNING SHOW

with
Patrick Timpone

Kat Duff

The Secret Life of Sleep

Birds do it. Bees do it. We get it. We lose it. But, what is “it”?

What makes us cross the line from waking to slumber? According to Harvard scientists it’s our ‘sleep switch’ – a cluster of neurons in the hypothalamus. For the ancient Greeks it was the god Hypnos, caressing you with his wings. For the Blackfeet Indians, a butterfly. And in European children’s tales, the Sandman, sprinkling you with dust.

Why do we sleep and what happens in our brains while we are sleeping? Why are sleep patterns in modern Western industrialised countries so unhealthy? How meaningful are dreams?

Show Highlights:

-How the quality of sleep affects the way we look at and solve problems

-How does the body heal when we sleep?

-How we age is related to the amount and quality of rest we get

-Making us better people and accessing the larger picture through being well rested

-1 in 4 takes a pill to get to sleep every night

-Sleep medications lessen our time in deep sleep which cuts healing time

-Research shows that before the Industrial Revolution, we slept in parts, not through the night

-What’s the difference between REM and deep sleep?

-A practice for dying

-The more you pay attention to your dreams, the more they can offer you

-Understanding 90 minute sleep cycles

-The importance of light in the morning and darkness at night

-Misdiagnosing ADHD: It may just be lack of sleep

-Finding your own circadian rhythm

-Winning your sleep back

and so much more!

Kat Duff-The Secret Life of Sleep

Kat Duff is the author of The Alchemy of Illness, and several essays published in Parabola Magazine, The Taos Review, and Ink and Ashes. She writes at the intersection of the natural world and the imagination as it occurs in the life our bodies. Whether she is discussing illness, scars, or sleep, Duff illuminates common, intimate experiences that are often overlooked with a lyricism that makes the profane flare into sacredness.

Living in the high desert of northern New Mexico for the last quarter century, Kat works for a living with traumatized children and adults, and finds solace in the open spaces and traditional cultures that surround her.

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kat duff on taking our sleep back, march 20, 2014