Hi there and welcome to the podcast. My name is Matt Walker and this podcast is all about sleep, the brain and the body.

Now separate from the first episode which is going to be released in about a week's time.

Here I wanted to give a short introduction to the podcast itself

and say a little bit more about its structure. Rather than being a long-form podcast

with each episode lasting several hours. These

podcasts are going to be short form monologues from yours truly. They will

typically last somewhere between five to 10 minutes in total and you can think of it maybe as 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 like a lot. First I just want to see if anyone out there even enjoys them and they find them meaningful.

Second, my day job and often night job is as a professor of neuroscience at the University of California Berkeley where I teach and I do my sleep research

Hence why it's sometimes my night job as well.

I'm also the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science here at the

University, all of which as a result keeps me delightfully and very gratefully

busy, but I'm still passionate about sharing the science of sleep, hence this

podcast. It's important for me to note that this podcast is separate from my job and

my role as a professor at the university.

In other words, the podcast content is that of my own, it doesn't represent or reflect

any of the views of the university and nor is it part of my varied roles there.

To make the podcast free and available to all, the podcast is going to be sponsored.

I made that choice as it allows me to democratize the science of

sleep to everyone rather than having it hide behind a paywall that's

prohibitive for the masses.

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