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6 Minute English

Sleepy in South Korea

6 Minute English

BBC

Education, Language Learning

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2022

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Life in a place where people work longer hours and get less sleep than anywhere else.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is a download from BBC Learning English. To find out more, visit our website.

0:07.0

Six Minute English from BBC LearningEnglish.com.

0:13.3

Hello, this is Six Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Sam.

0:18.0

And I'm Neil.

0:19.1

Sleep. We all need it, some more than others.

0:22.8

I can usually get by with around seven hours a night, but I do like to have a nap.

0:28.0

A short sleep in the afternoon when I'm not working, of course.

0:31.9

How about you, Neil?

0:33.1

I'm always tired and as soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm out like a light, meaning I go

0:38.7

to sleep very quickly.

0:39.8

Well Neil, you might not survive in South Korea then. Apparently it's one of the most

0:44.8

stressed and tired nations on earth, a place where people work and study longer hours

0:50.6

and get less sleep than anywhere else. We'll find out more later and teach some sleep-related

0:56.3

vocabulary. But before we do, you need to give me a question to keep me awake and alert.

1:02.4

Of course I do. And here it is. In the 1960s, American man Randy Gardner set the world record

1:10.3

for staying awake for the longest period.

1:13.7

Do you know what that time was? Was it A, 64 hours, B, 164 hours or C, 264 hours?

1:24.2

Oh, sound impossible, but I'll guess A, 64 hours. That's nearly three days.

1:30.5

Well, I'll give you the answer later in the program, assuming you don't doze off. But let's talk

1:35.8

more about sleep now. As I mentioned, we all need it to help our mind and body rest and relax.

1:42.1

And going without sleep or sleeplessness is bad for our health.

1:46.9

Many things can stop us sleeping and some of them are pressure, anxiety and stress caused by your

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