# Episode 140: Russell Foster - Sleep: The Most Important Thing You Do Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245/episode-140-russell-foster-sleep-the-most-important-thing-you-do Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245/episode-140-russell-foster-sleep-the-most-important-thing-you-do.md Podcast: [Keep Talking](https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245) Published: 2025-01-31T10:00:22+00:00 Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/humans/1871957 Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/14586/1871957/humans/2025_01_29_20_21_48_90a3eec6-5be0-4b9b-bba6-378d7ca13522.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/keep-talking-1331245/episodes/episode-140-russell-foster-sleep-the-most-important-thing-you-do Duration seconds: 4013 ## Resource Russell Foster is a sleep expert, a professor of circadian neuroscience, a fellow of the Royal Society, and the author of Life Time . ------------ Book Dan to do an interview or a meeting ------------ Keep Talking Substack Spotify Apple Podcasts Social media and all episodes ------------ Support via Venmo Support on Substack Support on Patreon ------------ (00:00) Intro (00:55) Views on sleep through time (03:34) Why we have de-prioritized sleep (05:39) Where should sleep rank in our health priorities? (08:22) How do we know we're getting enough sleep? (11:59) The historic and current cost of sleep deprivation (17:44) Why does sleep exist? (21:53) What is happening biologically while people sleep? (27:59) Sleep and mental illness (38:09) What those with mental illness can do to stabilize their sleep (01:00:25) Sleep for new parents (01:03:35) How would a healthy society approach sleep? ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/keep-talking-1331245/episodes/episode-140-russell-foster-sleep-the-most-important-thing-you-do/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245/episode-140-russell-foster-sleep-the-most-important-thing-you-do.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.