Sleep feels good but most think it a waste of time. Recent research shows quite the opposite: sleep is essential for bodily health and mental well-being, affecting the immune system, providing brain maintenance, enabling memory formation, and more. As Dr. Stickgold details in this short video, sleep, like eating, is essential for life.

Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.