Berkeley, California - We spend one-third of our lives sleeping, and yet it is only in the last decade or so that scientists have begun to really understand why. Among other things, UC Berkeley sleep researcher Matthew Walker has linked sleep deprivation to psychiatric disorders, obesity, risky behavior, post-traumatic stress disorder, learning and memory loss in old age.

Today, Walker and other scientists will be featured in the captivating documentary Sleepless in America, on the National Geographic Channel.

A co-production of the Public Good Projects and the National Institutes of Health, the documentary lays out in sometimes gripping detail the perils of getting too little sleep. For more details about sleep research at UC Berkeley, click on the following links.