What hibernating animals can teach us about human sleep with Vladyslav Vyazovskiy

Worklife with Adam Grant

TED

Management, Worklife Podcast, Worklife With Adam Grant, Work Life Balance, Ted Talks, Podcast About Work Life, Ted Adam Grant, Adam Grant Podcasts, Ted Podcasts, Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist, Business

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you ever wish you could hibernate like a bear during the winter? Vladyslav Vyazovskiy thinks it might be possible. As a sleep physiologist at Oxford, Vladyslav studies why humans sleep and the sleep patterns of other species. He and Adam discuss the possibility of unlocking a hibernation ability in humans and its potential benefits – from curing cancer to enabling interplanetary travel. They also debunk some popular sleep misconceptions, debate the value of napping, and uncover just how little we really know about the science of sleep.

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0:32.3	So it's very likely that rather than animals evolved to hibernate. Probably most of our ancestors actually
0:40.2	hibernated some forms and some of them lost in the course of evolution because it's such a
0:44.7	clever strategy. I actually think almost like a default state of being. Maybe we forgot how to do it
0:51.7	because we learn how to build houses, right, and have central heating.
0:59.5	Hey, everyone, it's Adam Graham.
1:01.5	Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast on the Science of What Makes Us Tick with the TED Audio Collective.
1:07.1	I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people
1:11.6	to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.
1:17.4	My guest today is Vladislav Vesovsky.
1:20.7	He's a sleep physiologist at Oxford, where he studies why we sleep and how animals hibernate.
1:26.3	His work has made me question many of my basic assumptions about slumber,
1:30.0	and I bet it's going to have the same effect on you.
1:32.7	We love metaphors when we talk about sleep,
1:35.2	and this is exactly because we don't understand it.
1:37.3	It's why we talk about the sleep depth,
1:39.3	and nobody knows what deep sleep is.
1:41.8	Today, Vladislav and I are wide awake to discuss the science of sleep and an idea that I find
1:47.2	fascinating, human hibernation.
	...

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