Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Sleep. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Sleep. Mostrar todas las entradas

viernes, 31 de marzo de 2017

Survey finds millions of Americans working on too little sleep

Daylight saving time starts in late March. The clocks spring ahead an hour, which means many will fall behind on their sleep. But being sleep-deprived is nothing new for many Americans.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1. How much sleep does John Hanford get a weeknight if he’s lucky?
2. And if he’s unlucky?
3. How does the woman being interview do to keep awake during the day?
4. What is the percentage of people who dream about their work?
5. How many of them often dream about work?
6. What might happen if one gets worried about not sleeping?

Daylight saving time starts this weekend. The clocks spring ahead an hour, which means many will fall behind on their sleep. But as Hena Daniels reports, being sleep-deprived is nothing new for many Americans.

John Hanford heads to work most days feeling a little tired.
How much sleep do you get on a weeknight?
I would say I get six hours a night if I’m lucky.
When you’re not lucky?
Four, sometimes even three.
Adults are supposed to get eight hours of sleep each night, but a new CareerBuilder survey finds only one-in-five workers actually reaches that goal. That means millions are working on too little sleep, and most say it has an impact on their job.
I mean, it’s definitely harder to concentrate when you feel tired or you’re constantly having coffee to stay awake.
In the survey, people say being tired makes them less productive and less motivated. It also affects their memory and makes them crabby.
Many people can’t escape work, even when they’re sleeping. 65% of people say they dream about work. One-in-ten say it happens often.
I’ll have nightmares that I forgot a deadline, or I have something that was due.
So, it’s a struggle.
Kevin Judge says being tired makes the day move slower.
You feel like the whole day is going by and you just, you can’t wait to get to sleep that night.
But worrying you’re not getting enough sleep can make things worse.
You get stressed about not sleeping and then it makes it harder to fall asleep.
Ironically, half of those surveyed said thinking about work keeps them up at night.
Hena Daniels, CBS News, New York.

KEY:
1 six hours
2 three or four
3 she’s constantly having coffee
4 65%
5 One in ten
6 They may find it harder to fall asleep.

miércoles, 22 de junio de 2016

Talking point: Sleep

This week's talking point is sleep. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Why do all animals, including human, need sleep?
What percentage of life does the average person spend asleep?
How long is it possible to go without sleep?
How many hours a night should adults sleep?
What about newborn babies?
What advice would you give to someone who has asleep problems?
Do you ever wake up at night?
What do you do if you find it difficult to go back to sleep?
Do you have specific sleeping habits?
How different are they from those of the people you live with?
In what situations does your sleep pattern change?
Do you know someone with particularly unusual sleeping habits?

INTERACTION –Segmented sleep patterns
(sleeping in two distinct four-hour chunks)
Imagine that most people have segmented sleep patterns.
What impact would it have on the way our lives are organised?
How would society need to adapt? Consider these factors:

travel and transport 
entertainment and socialising
work
leisure activities
education
meal times

Plan a typical day for a student who wants to start a segmented sleep pattern.
How can they make the best use of their time?
When should they…?
eat - work - relax - learn - exercise - spend time with friends

To illustrate the topic, watch the video How do you solve hotel insomnia?



How do you solve hotel insomnia?
Welcome to the waking nightmare that is hotel insomnia. I get it, and according to credible research one in four or five people at some point suffer from regular insomnia. That figure rises massively for frequent travelers who cross more than one time zone usually for business.
When it comes to difficulty in sleep when you are travelling, then the main problem is that your body clock is out of sync, so you are on home time but when you travel you are in a different time zone but you have not retuned your own body clock just like you haven’t necessarily tuned your own clock when you are on the plane.
Of course jet lag is a major factor in hotel-related insomnia, but so, experts say, it’s the first night effect. It’s all becoming so overwhelming for the modern traveller that hotels like this one are actually offering sound sleep packages, a bespoke science-based service that looks at the causes of insomnia, then examines the body’s ability to recover. Oh, and prices start for a minimum of $1,000 a night for two.
First of all you get a scan, to compare the left and right-hand sides of your brain.
You find a lot of people when they get into bed they will start focusing on “Will I get a good night’s sleep?, What if I don’t get a good night’s sleep?’ And automatically it starts waking us up.
At that price I’d be guaranteed to have a sleepless night, but luckily, residents’ sleep coach Tej gave me a previous sample.
By measuring the body over a of 24 hour period, by measuring what we call it the automatic nervous system over the twenty-four hour period, we look at that particular individuals’ ability to not only sleep but to recover. So If we find there is any imbalance, we can look at specifically what time that’s happening, where that’s happening and what’s causing that.
Just relax your head.
By giving you this insight, that your brain activity can be calmed down by your mind, the aim of the consultation is then to give you a routine, a control over your capacity to sleep. Next you get a whole armoury of tools and techniques to conquer your insomnia like an alpha sleep pot with comforting audio frequencies and a rather comforting head massage.
We carry into our sleep all the stress of the day and the muscles of the neck are probably the worst affected and leads to a lot of discomfort in sleep.
Beats counting sheep, I’ve got to say.
It’s not cheap, is it, so if I, for instance, didn’t get a good night’s sleep after it, could I have my money back?
Sure. No.
As Tej did say he would be willing to refund a disappointed customer as long as the hotel would, but the simple fact is that up until now every one of its customers has had a good night’s sleep.
There is, of course, a whole mini-industry dedicated to tackling insomnia: from herbal cures to high tech gadgets, from meditation to yoga. But then again, what’s wrong with the good old-fashioned sleeping tablet?
In the UK the medical establishment tends to be a little bit suspicious of using sleeping tablets. In other countries, there is much more freer use. I think a very good rule is that you try other things first but actually if they do not work using short acting sleeping tablets in the lowest dose that works for you can make all the difference.
But it’s not quick fixes, but countering the pressures and strains of frequent rapid travel and a bombardment of artificial stimuli that increasingly interest sleep therapists about insomnia dealing with modern life, basically.
You´re fond of hawthorn just look at this pink one, isn’t it lovely?
If you are a therapist like Ella prescribe books.
Reading during the day particularly at lunchtime or if you can have a break during the day just for 10 minutes 20 minutes, well actually slow your brain down at a crucial point during the day, so that then when you come to go to bed you can get back into that mindset and relax yourself again.
Having dealt with 1,500 clients Ella and her colleagues are convinced: The simple act of reading encourages sleep.
If you can have the luxury of someone reading to you while you are going to sleep, that is incredibly helpful and restful because it takes you back to a time probably when you were nurtured by your parents or someone who read to you before sleep and you really associate the human voice reading to you in a gentle maybe deliberately soporific way to help you go to sleep.
Ultimately, if none of these solutions work for you or you can’t afford them, and yet you still miss the familiarity and warmth of your own bed, well, why not just pop it into a bag and bring it with you!
And just for that extra help from home touch, a cuddly friend.

sábado, 14 de marzo de 2015

Reading test: Screen time harms teenagers' sleep

In this week's reading test we are going to use BBC's article Screen time harms teenagers' sleep to practise the task where students are given a number of words or phrases and have to insert them in the corresponding gap in the text. There are two words or phases you do not need to use. 0 is an example.

The longer a teenager spends using electronic devices (0) such as tablets and smartphones, the worse their sleep will be, a study of nearly 10,000 16- to 19-year-olds suggests.
More than two hours of screen time after school was strongly (1) ... to both delayed and shorter sleep.
Almost all the teens from Norway said they used the devices shortly before going to bed.
Many said they often got (2) ... than five hours sleep a night, BMJ Open reports.
The teens were asked questions about their sleep routine on weekdays and at weekends, (3) ... how much screen time they clocked up outside school hours.
On (4) ..., girls said they spent around five and a half hours a day watching TV or using computers, smartphones or other electronic devices. And boys spent slightly more time in front of a screen - around six and a half hours a day.
Playing computer games was more popular among the boys, whereas girls were more (5) ... to spend their time chatting online.
Any type of screen use during the day and in the hour before bedtime appeared to (6) ... sleep - making it more difficult for teenagers to nod off.
And the more hours they spent on gadgets, the more disturbed their sleep became.
When daytime screen use (7) ... four or more hours, teens had a 49% greater risk of taking longer than an hour to fall asleep.
These teens also tended to get less than five hours of sleep per night.
Sleep duration went steadily (8) ... as gadget use increased.
It may be that playing on electronic devices leaves teens with less time to (9) ... other things, including sleep, say the researchers - Dr Mari Hysing and colleagues at Uni Research Health, Bergen.
But it could be that screen time interferes with sleepiness.
Staring at an illuminated screen at bedtime could send the wrong (10) ... to our brain, disrupting our natural body clock and making us more alert, they suggest.
Dr Hysing said her findings had implications for the wider population as so many people use these devices.
"We know that sufficient sleep is essential for good physical and mental health. Logging off may be one important (11) ... toward securing a good night's sleep."
Prof Russell Foster, an expert in sleep and neuroscience at the University of Oxford, said: "This is an important study as it provides empirical evidence that the use of electronic devices before bed (12) ... reduces sleep duration."
He said teenagers should be warned of this.


as well as
average
disrupt
do
down
improve
indeed
less
likely
linked
make
signals
step
such as 0
totalled


Photo: BBC.com

Key:
1 linked; 2 less; 3 as well as; 4 average; 5 likely; 6 disrupt; 7 totalled; 8 down; 9 do; 10 signals ; 11 step; 12 indeed


miércoles, 25 de febrero de 2015

Talking point: Sleep

This week's talking point is sleep. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below, so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.
  • Do you have/Have you ever had problems sleeping?
  • What do you do to help you get to sleep?
  • How much sleep do you need? Do you get as much sleep as you need?
  • Is your sleep light or do you sleep like a log? What kind of things wake you up? 
  • Can you sleep in a bus or plane? With the TV on or with noise?
  • Do you like sleeping in complete darkness?
  • Do you know any sleepwalkers? What do they do?
  • Do you have a nap after eating lunch?
  • What is the longest you have gone without sleep?
  • Do you snore or do you know anyone who snores? How can this problem be solved?
  • Have you ever overslept and missed something really important?
  • Do you go to bed at a fixed time or do you wait until you're tired?
  • Have you ever flown long haul? Where to? Did you get jet lag? How long did it take you to get over it?
  • Do you find it difficult to go to sleep in a bed that you aren't used to sleeping in?
  • Do you often have nightmares or recurring dreams?
To illustrate the topic, watch this short talk by Arianna Huffington for TED, where she shares a small idea that can awaken much bigger ones: the power of a good night's sleep.



    My big idea is a very, very small idea that can unlock billions of big ideas that are at the moment dormant inside us. And my little idea that will do that is sleep.
    This is a room of type-A women. This is a room of sleep-deprived women. And I learned the hard way, the value of sleep. Two-and-a-half years ago, I fainted from exhaustion. I hit my head on my desk. I broke my cheekbone, I got five stitches on my right eye. And I began the journey of rediscovering the value of sleep. And in the course of that, I studied, I met with medical doctors, scientists, and I'm here to tell you that the way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep.
    And we women are going to lead the way in this new revolution, this new feminist issue. We are literally going to sleep our way to the top, literally.
    Because unfortunately for men, sleep deprivation has become a virility symbol. I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he had only gotten four hours sleep the night before. And I felt like saying to him -- but I didn't say it -- I felt like saying, "You know what? If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting."
    There is now a kind of sleep deprivation one-upmanship. Especially here in Washington, if you try to make a breakfast date, and you say, "How about eight o'clock?" they're likely to tell you, "Eight o'clock is too late for me, but that's okay, I can get a game of tennis in and do a few conference calls and meet you at eight." And they think that means that they are so incredibly busy and productive, but the truth is they're not, because we, at the moment, have had brilliant leaders in business, in finance, in politics, making terrible decisions. So a high I.Q. does not mean that you're a good leader, because the essence of leadership is being able to see the iceberg before it hits the Titanic. And we've had far too many icebergs hitting our Titanics.
    In fact, I have a feeling that if Lehman Brothers was Lehman Brothers and Sisters, they might still be around. (Applause) While all the brothers were busy just being hyper-connected 24/7, maybe a sister would have noticed the iceberg, because she would have woken up from a seven-and-a-half- or eight-hour sleep and have been able to see the big picture.
    So as we are facing all the multiple crises in our world at the moment, what is good for us on a personal level, what's going to bring more joy, gratitude, effectiveness in our lives and be the best for our own careers is also what is best for the world. So I urge you to shut your eyes and discover the great ideas that lie inside us, to shut your engines and discover the power of sleep.

      jueves, 25 de septiembre de 2014

      Five Minutes With Paul McKenna - NLP Life Training

      Matthew Stadlen interviews hypnotist Paul McKenna for Five Minutes with... . He speaks about his attitude to hypnosis, whether it made him feel powerful, his skill at having fun, and the ability of people to become more intelligent.

      Self-study activity:
      Watch the video and note down the questions Matthew asks Paul McKenna.
      Watch the video again and note down the main ides in Paul McKenna's answers.

      The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 student.



      Paul McKenna, five minutes. I’m going to ask you to count us down once I’ve put the battery in. Any views on the clock?
      I think we should’ve gone with a watch, but, you know, it’s, it’s part of your character, isn’t it? Speaks a lot about you.
      They wouldn’t help you with hypnosis.
      I’m, I have difficulty swinging that.
      Here we go, batteries going in. Here we are.
      Five, four, three, two, one.
      What do you think your biggest skill is?
      Well, professionally, I think it’s my ability to help people change, improve, therapy. I mean really, I’d say I can cure most psychological problems and some physiological ones as well. Recently, a friend of mine who is a life coach, we were doing one of these processes at a seminar that we were working on together and we looked at things that you’re rubbish at, things that you’re okay about and then what’s the thing that you’re utterly brilliant at? Because everybody is brilliant at someone. One of the things that I listed was having fun and I actually really believe that I have a lot of fun, in fact, more fun than most, you know? And so I put that down as one of my skills.
      How do you help people change?
      Well, I do it through modern psychological techniques and indeed some, you know, old fashioned esoteric ones. I would use anything that works. I take a very mechanical view of it, so I look at the mind as similar to a computer and I’m helping somebody to reprogram that computer. But you know, I’m always learning; I’m always developing and learning from those people who are better than me.
      And you use hypnosis?
      Absolutely. Yeah, hypnosis is something I use a lot. I find it a very powerful tool for what it is I want to accomplish.
      Can you summarise hypnosis very succinctly for me?
      Well, there are many different schools of thought but I’m going to say it usually involves fixation of attention. It’s often synonymous with deep relaxation and imagination, and in this, some people think of it as a special state; some people don’t, but certainly in the procedure, it allows us to move beyond the limitations that we might normally have in our sort of conscious mindsets and see things from different perspectives; get access to resources that are unconscious.  And so it’s a very, very powerful technique for really bringing out the best in us. All the things that we can achieve with hypnosis, I believe we can achieve in other ways but I particularly like it.
      Can anyone become a hypnotist?
      Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you know I think to some extent, you know, I look at the everyday hypnotists as sales people, cult leaders, politicians, even parents. The things parents say to their children, you know, particularly in the formative years, they have a power of a hypnotic suggestion, so you know, we’re all hypnotists in a sense.
      How did you become a hypnotist?
      I was working as a radio broadcaster and I went to interview the local hypnotist and I was very stressed that day and he said, “Look, I need to hypnotise you,” and I was open minded. I was into yoga and meditation. I felt very relaxed, quite euphoric afterwards; I borrowed some books from this guy and I began hypnotising my friends to help them lose weight and quit smoking, and it worked most of the time. Then I would be at a party and everyone would say, “Oh, turn someone into a ballerina,” or something like that and we’d fall about laughing. So I started doing shows where I got people to do daft things when they were hypnotised and at the same time, I was working with people one-to-one, helping them to improve their lives. And in the end, I decided really that was what I wanted to do and that’s what my life is dedicated to.
      How long does it take you typically to hypnotise someone?
      Well, it depends. I mean, the hypnotising isn’t really the important thing for me. That’s a tool. It’s what you then do with it. So it depends on the person; it depends on the skill of the operator. There’s so many variables. You know, I mean it doesn’t work every time for everything. In fact, we have a saying: anyone who says they’ve got a 100% success rate doesn’t have enough clients.
      Does it make you feel powerful to be a hypnotist?
      Yes, it can do. I suppose some people have that association, you know: men with goatee beards, black shirts buttoned up to the top, you know, all powerful but the modern view is that it gives you greater communication capabilities with somebody. And so I would say more important than power to me is the feeling of euphoria I get when I help somebody make a change, particularly if it’s been one that’s really dramatically impaired their life.
      Have you been hypnotised?
      Of course.
      What’s it like? Can you describe it?
      Yeah. For me, well, every trance is different but it’s very relaxing. It’s kind of like that moment just before you fall asleep at night, you know; you’re not really asleep, you’re not really awake; you’re in this lovely sort of dreamlike state. However, sometimes you can be, say, fixated on a television programme or a public speaker and you can lose your sense of time and everything around you and become totally engrossed in it. That’s equally as hypnotic.
      You’ve written another self help book, I Can Make you Smarter. Can you really make people smarter?
      Absolutely.
      Ten seconds.
      Yeah. Absolutely. Overwhelming scientific research says that we can all become smarter. It’s not just genetics; it’s environmental.
      And that, Paul McKenna, is five minutes. Thank you very much.
      Thank you.

      jueves, 14 de marzo de 2013

      How sleep affects your memory

      New findings show getting the right kind of sleep can reduce risks of memory loss. Watch this two-minute ABC video clip and answer the questions about it.

      The activity is suitable for intermediate students.



      Say whether the statements below are true or false.
      1 It seems that it is the kind of sleep that it's important, not the amount.
      2 The slow-wave sleep occurs in the first few hours of the sleep cycle.
      3 In that sleep memories are transferred from a long-term location to a long-term location.
      4 Researchers asked people to memorise ordinary words paired with nonsense numbers.
      5 In theory the ability to retain previously unkown information deteriores with age.
      6 If you improve slow-wave sleep your memory will improve, no matter how old you are.
      7 Exercise is always beneficial.

      We have all been there. Not enough sleep. Your brain gets foggy,  your memories, your ability to recall not as sharp. It turns out, it’s not necessarily the amount of sleep you're getting but instead the kind of sleep.  But tonight ABC's Amy Robach on what it takes to get those short-term memories into your brain's long-term hard drive. 
      Scientists have discovered what's happening at night may be the key to why memories fade as you age. Turns out, it's not how much you sleep but what kind of sleep that may be crucial. It's called slow-wave sleep. The non-dream deep sleep that occurs in the first few hours of a sleep cycle. Your brain waves are actually different with higher peaks and valleys. 
      That sleep is actually transferring memories from one location within the brain, a short-term location to a long-term location. 
      We have all heard of testing memory by recalling dates and faces. But researchers asked people to memorize ordinary words paired with nonsense words, like ‘false’ and ‘dipotabia’, ‘jump’ and ‘villened’. The theory, that the ability to retain previously unknown information declines with age. Doctors then tested to see if people could remember those word pairings after sleep. The older patients with less slow wave sleep had a harder time remembering the words. 
      If you had bad sleep your memory was a lot worse. If we can improve sleep, we could actually improve memory. 
      The good news, no matter your age, doctors say there is a way to improve slow-wave sleep and thus your memory. 
      Exercise, and exercise may be specially interesting in relationship to this deep slow-wave sleep. Exercise can increase the amount of time you spend in that deep slow-wave sleep.
      And Amy is with us now. Great to have you with us. This is really fascinating. So during slow-wave sleep, your memories are actually being moved from the front to the back. 
      Right. And the problem is, for people who have aged it's a natural process for there to be atrophy in that front part of the brain. So it doesn't do a very good job of taking those memories and putting them back in the hard drive where they're stored and able to be accessed. 
      So they never make it into the hard drive. You mentioned exercise in your report but there does the timing of the exercise or the kind of exercise matter?
      Researchers say it’s very important not to exercise close to your bed time because then you’re going to be wired and charged, and you’re not going to be able to get any sleep, let alone…

      Key:
      1T 2T 3F 4F 5T 6T 7F

      viernes, 15 de febrero de 2013

      Ostrich pillow

      Watch this short  ITN news video clip about an original invention that can work wonders for those extremely busy people who are short of sleep.

      The activity is suitable for Básico 2 and Intermediate 1 students.

      Self-study activity:
      Watch the video through and try to understand as much as possible.

      Watch the video again and complete the blanks in the transcript with the missing words.


      Are you always tired? Well, look no 1 (...) . The Ostrich pillow could be your solution. In the office or on the road, the Ostrich pillow (2) ... they can offer busy people the chance to (3) ... anywhere, anytime.
      Immediately we realized that many people from different sectors want it: (4) ... , students, doctors who sleep in hospitals, people who travel a lot and spend a lot of time in airplanes, people who study a lot in libraries. So, suddenly we (5) ... that many people need it, not just a very small (6) ... but many people need it. And this is interesting because this is when you start saying this is a product that people need at a global level.
      The pillow’s been created, so anyone using it can disconnect from their (7) ... . But whether you actually wear the unusual (8) ... in public is a different matter.

      Key:
      1 further 2 says 3 snooze 4 firemen 5 realized  6 niche 7 surroundings 8 design 

      viernes, 4 de enero de 2013

      How much sleep do you need?

      Are you feeling ravenous?
      Are you weepy?
      Are you forgetful?
      Can't you shake that cold?
      Are you clumsier than usual?
      Have you lost that loving feeling?

      If the answer to some of the questions above is 'yes', you may be short of sleep. Read this short Huffington Post article and the accompanying slideshow to find out more about the topic.

      You can also watch this video where Dr. Rizan Hajal explains the basics of sleep.


      Self-study activity: Watch the video and answer these questions:

      1 Does everybody need an eight-hour sleep?
      2 What does 20% refer to at the beginning of the interview?
      3 Does our brain go into a mini-coma when we sleep?
      4 How long is a sleep cycle approximately?
      5 Is the REM sleep the deepest cycle of sleep?
      6 What happens if we don't get the REM sleep?
      7 How long do we spend in the lighter stage of sleep?

      You can check the answers by reading the transcript below.

      Raena Morgan: Dr. Hajal, basic question. How much sleep do we need to get? The typical eight hours, is that? 
      Dr. Rizan Hajal: I don't have a clear scientific answer to tell you. It's still true, what your grandma said, perhaps that you need somewhere between seven and nine hours and majority of the people, almost 80% of the people, require something around that, but which tells you that almost 20% of the people can sleep something different. We're talking about normal sleep, not those who have trouble falling asleep or who cannot fall asleep. We're talking about normal sleep, which means they wake up feeling rested and comfortable. Some people need six hours. Some people need 11 hours, so we don't really know. 
      Raena Morgan: What is a sleep cycle?
      Dr. Rizan Hajal: A sleep cycle is, it's very important when you're sleeping to know that it is not one stage of sleep, so it's not like our bodies go into a mini-coma at night, through the night, and then you wake up. To the contrary, actually your brain is working on sleep and so it has to be a sequence of events that you go through. We know there are three stages of regular sleep and one stage of REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. And then, of course, there's the wake and those stages don't come just randomly at night. You go from one cycle to another and we find that every 90 minutes is almost a cycle and then you keep repeating that and the more cycles you will get, the more restful you will feel the next day and they have to come in this sequence so if you have a sleep disorder that gives you maybe the same number of minutes at the end of the night, but not in the same sequence, you will not feel rested the next day. So, they have to come in this sequence. So it has to be orchestrated. The brain is doing a process, an active process, to actually wake up feeling rested the next day.
      Raena Morgan: So the REM sleep, that's the deepest cycle of the sleep?
      Dr. Rizan Hajal: It's one of the deepest. There is also the slow wave sleep, which is a different kind of deep sleep that its definitely one of the restful sleep that we should get into.
      Raena Morgan: So, if you don't get that sleep, then you're not going to be refreshed.
      Dr. Rizan Hajal: That's true and many studies would show that they would start eliminating those parts of sleep on volunteers and they will see what the effect of that is. And most of them end up feeling just completely unable to function just sleepy and the difference was not that much, which stage you would block to make your sleep as a true which tells us that we actually need all stages of sleep to actually wake up feeling refreshed.
      Raena Morgan: Even a lighter stage?
      Dr. Rizan Hajal: The lighter stage is of course, if you spent too much in the lighter stage, then it's not a refreshing stage so we do need a little bit more of the deeper ones. But it's normal for you to spend 20% of your sleep in lighter stage. That's normal, healthy sleep.
      Raena Morgan: Thank you Dr. Hajal.
      Dr. Rizan Hajal: Thank you.

      lunes, 4 de junio de 2012

      How do you solve hotel insomnia?

      How do you solve hotel insomnia is an episode of BBC World News travel programme Fast Track. This excerpt is a bit lengthy, just a bit under six minutes.

      Self-study activity:
      Watching the clip and understanding as much as possible should do the job for you. Anyway, to help you focus while listening, answer the questions below after you watch.


      1 How many people suffer from hotel insomnia?
      2 Which two major factors for hotel insomnia are mentioned?
      3 What does the $1,000 at the hotel refer to?
      4 What part of the body does stress affect more severely?
      5 How many of the hotel customers have been dissatisfied with the treatment so far?
      6 Are UK doctors fond of prescribing sleeping tablets?
      7 What's the best moment of the day to read?
      8 What effect does reading have on you?
      9 What luxury does Ella mention?

      You can read the transcript here.

      Key:
      1 one in four or five 2 jet lag and the first night effect 3 a night for two which includes a sound sleep package 4 the neck 5 none 6 No 7 lunchtime 8 it slows down your brain 9 having someone reading to you

      domingo, 18 de marzo de 2012

      Arianna Huffington: Get more sleep

      In this short TED talk, Arianna Huffington shares a small idea that can awaken much bigger ones: the power of a good night's sleep. Instead of bragging about our sleep deficits, she urges us to shut our eyes and see the big picture: We can sleep our way to increased productivity and happiness -- and smarter decision-making.

      Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. She is the co-host of “Left, Right & Center,” a political roundtable radio program.

      Remember you can activate the English subtitles if you wish to do so.