E46 Steven Lockley on blind people and sleep

It’s a problem many blind people are all too familiar with. We’re wide awake in the middle of the night, and have an uncontrollable urge to sleep in the middle of the day. It can make life utterly miserable, in terms of maintaining a schedule in sync with our friends and family, and performing at our best on the job. We now call this phenomenon non-24, and there are things you can do about it.

Even if you’re lucky enough not to be affected by non-24, most of us could do with more, and better quality, sleep in this fast-paced connected world of ours.

To talk about sleep in general, and the challenges many blind people face with sleep in particular, Jonathan Mosen talks with Professor Steven Lockley, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He’s a neuro-scientist with an interest in sleep and circadian disorders. He’s spent considerable time examining the issue of blind people and sleep, and how non-24 might be treated. [...]