Trailer & Welcome!

The Matt Walker Podcast is all about sleep, the brain, and the body  ·  Matt is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley  ·  He is the author of the book, Why We Sleep, and has given a few TED talks  ·  Matt is an awkward British nerd who adores science and the communication of science to the public. 

Transcript

Hi there, and welcome to the podcast. 

My name is Matt Walker. And this podcast is all about sleep, the brain and the body. 

Here, what I wanted to do was give a short introduction to the podcast itself and say a little bit about its structure. 

Rather than being a long-form podcast with each episode lasting say, several hours, these podcasts will be short-form monologues from yours truly, they will typically last somewhere between five to 10 minutes in total. And it's just meant to be a little slice of sleep goodness to accompany your waking day if you will. 

I'm aiming to release two episodes a month, to begin with. Now, I know that doesn't sound a lot, I first just want to see if anyone out there even enjoys them. So I'm going to be looking forward to your feedback and seeing what the pickup rate is. 

Second, my day job. And often my night job is as a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. And the reason it's often my night job is because that's where I not only teach, but I do my sleep research. And I'm also the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University, all of which, as a result, keeps me delightfully and very gratefully busy. But I am still passionate about sharing the science of sleep. And hence this podcast. 

It's important for me to note that this podcast is separate from my job and role as a professor at the University. That is all of the podcast content is that of my own, it doesn't represent or reflect any of the views of the university. Nor is it part of my varied roles. 

Also to make this podcast free and available to all this podcast will be sponsored. And they made that choice as it allows me to democratize the science of sleep to everyone. Rather than having these podcasts hiding behind some kind of paywall, that's going to be prohibitive for the masses. And the choice of those sponsors has been made very thoughtfully. I will only use sponsors whose companies or products I know and I feel comfortable with and frequently I will have been using for a long time before this podcast actually began. 

Lastly, I want to make it clear that I am not a medical doctor. None of the content of this podcast should be considered as medical advice in any way shape or form, nor prescriptive in any way. The podcast doesn't represent any form of medicine or any other health care professions. 

And with that, I hope you will join me on what will be a fascinating journey into the secrets of the sleeping brain and the dreaming mind. I will see you in the first episode. 

Thanks very much!