2016于宙tedx演讲稿 我们这一代人的困惑

第一篇：2016于宙tedx演讲稿 我们这一代人的困惑

2016于宙tedx演讲稿 我们这一代人的困惑

于宙，一位80后的创业者，他现在在大连从事餐饮行业，目前拥有四家芝士蛋糕店和3家火烧店，在TEDX上发表精彩演讲，分享他年轻的故事，他说，说一个人在年轻的时候，做的每一件事情，能清楚地区分其中随机性所占的比例并能心平气和地接受它，就是最宝贵的财富。下面是这篇于宙tedx演讲稿我们这一代人的困惑 于宙tedx演讲稿我们这一代人的困惑

大家下午好，很荣幸能够参加本次TEDx大会。

自我介绍

我是大连人，高中就读于大连市二十四中。因为当时学习十分不努力，所以高中毕业之后选择了出国留学。这其实是很多本科出国留学的人不能说的秘密，辗转了几个学校，最终毕业于美国印第安纳大学凯利商学院，主修投资和金融衍生品。

上学的时候迷恋炒股，学习依旧散漫，没能成为一个“放弃了华尔街的高薪工作毅然回国”的海归精英，真的颇为遗憾，因为实在没有什么华尔街的公司愿意要我。碰巧的是，毕业前两年股市和外汇的行情比较好，赚到了一点点资本，于是我决定回国做点生意。现在在大连从事餐饮行业，目前拥有4家芝士蛋糕店和3家火烧店。

引言

大学毕业之后第一次面对这么多人做演讲，坦率地说，非常的紧张。虽然年轻的时候我曾经畅想过很多次，功成名就之后能像我曾经的那些偶像一样和年轻的朋友们分享一下我是如何从一无所有走上人生巅峰的经验，然后语重心长地告诉大家，人活着不能像一根草而是要像一棵树，能走到金字塔顶端的只有雄鹰和蜗牛两种动物，我的成功你也可以复制等等。可是过了26岁之后我忽然意识到一个严肃的问题，就是自己的一生未必会取得很大的成就啊，所以当TEDxDUFE团队找到我说没关系即便你只是一个开小吃店的，我们也愿意为你提供这样一个和很多人交流思想的机会时，我的心情是多么地激动。因为公司还没上市，所以小草大树、雄鹰蜗牛、睡地板捡易拉罐这样的故事还不到说的时候。今天，只想和大家分享几个困扰了我和我身边的一些朋友十几年的问题，和在经历了一些变故和挫折后，我对这些问题的看法。

努力奋斗真的能实现梦想吗?

大家现在可以想象一下汪峰老师坐在转椅上，深情地望着你，对你说，“你的梦想是什么?”周星驰老师的那句“做人如果没有梦想，和咸鱼有什么区别?”据说也激励了几代人。梦想这个东西是如此的重要，简直就是人生的一盏明灯。成功的人们成功的原因各不相同，但他们都不会忘记告诉你，无论到什么时候，都不曾忘记梦想，是他们成功的首要原因。以至于我们这一代人对于人生意义的最通常的理解，就在于坚持梦想并最终实现它。可很少有人愿意面对的一件事情是，大部分人的梦想永远，没错，永远都实现不了。

你没听错，大部分人的梦想永远都实现不了。

先和大家分享一个我之前的梦想。上大学的时候，我热衷于各式各样的赌博游戏，是学校旁边赌场的常客。我赌徒生涯的起点源于赌场里最基本游戏轮盘赌，轮盘上1到36个数字和两个0，赔率是1赔36。1到36分为红黑两色，押注红黑的赔率是1赔1。作为一个合格的接受过九年义务教育的人都知道，每一次轮盘开始转动的那一刻，都是一次纯粹的独立随机事件。但是赌博这件事情的魅力就在于，当你真正身处赌场，看到已经连续4次开出红色的时候，几乎所有人都会想把筹码压在黑色的那一面。而我当时的梦想，就是破译这其中的奥秘。我最初的策略非常简单，当连续三次开出奇数，就押注偶数，连续三次红色，就押注黑色。难以置信的事情发生了，在我严格地执行这个策略的情况下，前几次去赌场不但全身而退，每次都还赚了不少，以至于我产生了一种幻觉，也许游戏是有规律可循的，我已经看到了人生巅峰就在不远处向我招手。当然最终的结尾你们一定想到了，在经历过连续18个偶数，连续开出21次黑色后，我把之前赚到的钱都乖乖地还给了赌场。

后来我知道，我那个愚蠢的梦想叫做赌徒谬论，就不具体展开讲了。但它对我意义深刻，我终于明白了在纯粹的随机事件面前，一切规律都是无谓的。

生活中的事情有极个别和轮盘赌一样，属于纯粹的随机事件，比如双色球。可是几乎每一个中了双色球的人都会告诉你啊，他们花了多少精力去钻研往期号码，研究历史规律，付出了多少辛勤的努力，最终获得了成功。实际上，即使是纯粹由随机性主导的事情，只要参与的人的基数足够大，小概率事件总会发生。有趣的是，几乎所有在随机事件中的受益者，都会把这完全由运气决定的结果归功于自己的努力上。不仅仅是参与者本身，旁观者也会这么认为。再比如，中国好声音的冠军嘛。

我们生活中遇到的所有事情基本可以分为三类，第一类纯粹由随机性决定，比如布朗运动和轮盘赌博;第二类纯粹由能力决定，比如英语六级考试、110米栏之类;第三类，也是我们最常遇到的，由能力和随机性共同决定，比如创业、投资、恋爱或是梦想。

我对励志大师们总告诉年轻人要不惜一切代价追逐梦想感到深深厌倦的原因就在于，大多数人的梦想虽然不是纯粹的双色球，但也绝对是由随机性主导的。在强大的随机性面前，付出再多辛勤的汗水，就好比夜以继日蹲在轮盘赌旁边渴望参透其中规律。前面说到中国好声音的冠军，张碧晨的那一句youaremydestiny，听得我也是醉了。但毕竟那一刻，中国又有多少唱歌唱得和她一样好甚至更好的姑娘，如果真把成为好声音冠军作为一生的梦想，一生中都得在痛苦中度过。我个人很喜欢黄渤，但绝对不会用黄渤作为例子去激励一个我这种长相差的年轻人不惜一切代价去追逐演员梦，注意是不惜一切代价。因为无论是唱歌还是演戏，再多的努力也只能让你变得很优秀，它们并不存在可以量化的评判标准，想成为万众瞩目的明星，随机性的重要程度都远远大于实力。

我想，一个人在年轻的时候，做的每一件事情，能清楚地区分其中随机性所占的比例并能心平气和地接受它，在我看来就是最宝贵的财富。那么在你的梦想中，运气又扮演了多重要的角色呢?当你深深地感知到这件事情的随机性也许不会青睐于你，是否还愿意坚持下去呢?对我而言，梦想永远是值得执着追求的，但我可以无比心平气和地接受，它就是永远无法实现。

既然连梦都实现不了，还有什么事情值得努力呢?

去年这个时候，我发过一条微博。

这些年我一直提醒自己一件事情，千万不要自己感动自己。大部分人看似的努力，不过是愚蠢导致的。什么熬夜看书到天亮，连续几天只睡几小时，多久没放假了，如果这些东西也值得夸耀，那么富士康流水线上任何一个人都比你努力多了。人难免天生有自怜的情绪，唯有时刻保持清醒，才能看清真正的价值在哪里。

这段话在网上的疯传，是我始料不及的。更出乎我意料之外的是，我在评论中看到了相当一部分的骂声，还有人认真地给我写下了相当深刻的话，“你在拥有自己的光亮时不要吹熄别人的蜡烛，你不能因为你自己的不喜欢就否定别人。”很莫名其妙是吧，即使你刚刚听完我上一段关于随机性的看法，你也会知道，我从来都不觉得努力是一件无所谓的事情。恰恰相反，我一直相信，在能力没达到一定程度之前，你连面对随机性的资格都没有啊。张碧晨能拿好声音冠军自然离不开运气，但换成杨幂，评委不但不会转身，可能直接撒腿就跑了。

可现在问题来了，那究竟什么才算是有价值的努力?这可以从我那条微博说起。去年这个时候，我和朋友在琢磨去大庆做点服装生意，决定去考察几个商场。我当时住在北京，因为之前晚上和朋友在外面玩得比较尽兴，回到家里已经比较晚了，担心睡觉睡过头会错过航班，那晚上就直接在沙发上靠了一晚。那是我第一次去哈尔滨，十一月份已经很冷了，衣服拿得不足，下了飞机冻得头疼。又因为没有提前订票，到了哈尔滨之后才买的火车票，发现就只剩站票了。于是，当我一晚上没睡，冻得头晕眼花，又在绿皮火车上站了两个多小时之后，抵达大庆的那一瞬间我觉得自己实在是太不容易了，将来必须要写进回忆录里面。可是，回头仔细一想，这些所谓的“努力”对我最终把那个服装生意做好，没有半毛钱关系。更何况，如果我前一天晚上能早点上床睡觉，多准备点衣服，提前在网上把火车票订好，完全可以舒舒服服地达到同样的目的。我的那次经历像是自己二十多年生活中很多事情的缩影，沉溺在对结果没有直接帮助只是因为自己遭受了一些痛苦的行为中，误以为那就是努力。

当我终于意识到我并不是唯一曾经把无意义的消耗当作努力的时候，忽然发现，原来生活中我觉得很努力的人，也许没那么勤奋，如果在正确的方向上坚持行动，超过他们也并不困难。

因为我们这一代人对于勤奋和努力的理解，几乎清一色地来自于学校，更精确地说，在前二十多年的生活中，我们眼中最努力的人，就是那些最能拼命看书和做题的人。实际上，这种理解是极其片面而幼稚的，因为看书和做题本身，都是为了一个极其鲜明的目的而存在的，就是通过考试。这种勤奋的付出极其纯粹，更多的复习时间，更高的复习强度，一般而言，都可以直接地提高考试的分数，它们之间的联系鲜明而直接，每个人都看得懂。

但生活的美妙之处却在于，很多事情在我们没做到一定程度之前，是完全没法理解的。

这就好比学英语，十几年漫长的岁月里我都在幻想，要通过多么复杂的流程，多么精密的设计，多么全面的涉及和多么不可思议的努力，终于有那么一天，或许我就能因为前期的那些无懈可击的学习，说一口比较流利的英语，像说中文一样，可以边说边想，而不是说每一句话之前设计它的句式时态词汇然后在心里复述几遍再看上去流利地背诵出来。谁不是这么设想的呢?可惜，它不仅从来没有实现，并且让我看不到有任何实现的趋势，对于每一个设立目标的人来说，没有比这更痛苦的感受。

但是在去了美国两年左右的时间之后，我忽然发现自己已经可以毫无障碍地说一口流利的英语了。这并非我采用了什么新的学习方法，而是因为去了印第安纳之后身边中国人很少，在没有选择的情况下，只能被迫用英语去交流和表达，在这个过程中，我并没有认真想过自己每天进步了多少，也没有阶段性的检验学习效果，只是不停地去听和说，因为没有选择嘛。直到两年多后的忽然有一天我才意识到，咦，自己好像真的已经可以了。但是我确实无法总结出来是如何一步一步做到的，只是那两年的时间，我一直都在很不情愿地用英语去生活嘛。

一个人能获得的最可贵的能力，都和掌握一门语言一样，你所付出的努力不是能够获得即时回馈的，甚至在很长的一段时间内没有任何收获，直到积累到了一定的阶段后，忽然爆发出惊人的力量，连你自己都不清楚这一切是如何发生的。比如锻炼身体，读书写作，或者是做生意。当你经历了足够的量变终于引起质变时拥有的技能，大部分人是终身难以企及的，不是因为他们太笨，恰恰相反，因为他们都太聪明了。

触发人类行动的最基本原理被称为反射，我们是需要即时回馈的物种。所以绝大多数人对于世界的理解度是线性的，但更多情况下，事物却是以漫长的潜伏震荡后爆发突破的形式发展的。我现在时常觉得，人在少年时期更容易掌握语言、乐器、美术这些成年后很难学的技艺，并非那小时候就是天资聪颖，而是小孩子很少会一个星期质疑一次自己收获了多少，都是闷头一练就是好几年，直到学会了才知道哦自己已经会了。只有聪明的成年人，才相信一本书读懂易经，10句话揭秘马云的成功之道，30天成为吉他高手的故事。

简而言之，现实生活中，付出和结果之间往往没有那么立竿见影。在离开学校之后，当我们遇到的很多事情不再像做题和考试之间联系得那么紧密的时候，很多人的付出都是浅尝辄止的。而最可贵的努力，是选择一个正确的方向，那些无法立即获得回报的事情，依然能付出十年如一日的专注和热情，最终的结果也许不足以让你独孤求败，但足以出类拔萃。

人这一生中是否有一个节点，过了之后一切都会好起来?

前面说了这么多，谈论的都与目标和实现目标有关。仔细想想，我们的一生好像都是在实现目标中挣扎着度过的。上初中的时候，老师告诉你，中考的淘汰率是最高的，只要闯过去，上了高中一切就好了。但上了高中的时候发现不是那么回事嘛，高中老师又说了啊，考上大学就进了天堂。于是你考上了大学，依然空虚迷茫各种草样年华，父母老师又告诉你，找到工作就好了。工作之后发现烦恼和忧虑依然都在，女朋友给你看马云的故事，告诉你等你事业有成就好了......你发现了吗，其实人这一辈子的每一个阶段都有新的痛苦和顾虑，周而复始，生生不息。绝对不会因为你考上大学，事业有成，迎娶了女神就从此happilyeverafter。但每一个阶段也有每一个阶段的快乐，无法替代。生活不是安徒生童话也不是好莱坞电影，从出生的那一刻起直到生命的尽头，都不存在什么节点，过去了之后一切幸福美满无忧无虑。

每一段岁月都有它存在的价值，没有高低贵贱之分，都不应该被辜负。而我能想到的人这一生能做的最愚蠢的事情，就是把全部人生的希望都孤注一掷到未来的某个节点上，而忽略了生活本身应有的乐趣。哪怕你以后真正实现了那个执念中的目标，才会发现它远远没你想的那么美好。年轻的时候和哥们在操场上打篮球喝可乐的快乐，是以后高尔夫球会所里品红酒替代不了的。尤其男生，千万不要总想着等将来有钱了如何如何，且不说你以后很可能不会太有钱，而且相信我，就是有钱了也真的不能怎么样。生命就在每天的生活里，一切执念都是虚妄。和身边的人愉快相处，认真安排好每一天的活动，用心去感受每一天的心境，就是生活的意义本身。这其实是我今天最想分享给你们的事情。

谢谢大家。

第二篇：精彩演讲《我们这一代人的困惑》

我们这一代人的困惑

于宙 大家下午好：

很荣幸能够参加本次TEDx大会，非常感谢东北财经大学TED团队和华臣影城为我们提供这样一个交流的机会。

自我介绍

我是大连人，高中就读于大连市二十四中。因为当时学习十分不努力，所以高中毕业之后选择了出国留学，这其实是很多本科出国留学的人不能说的秘密，辗转了几个学校，最终毕业于美国印第安纳大学凯利商学院，主修投资和金融衍生品。上学的时候迷恋炒股，学习依旧散漫，没能成为一个“放弃了华尔街的高薪工作毅然回国”海归精英，真的颇为遗憾，因为实在没有什么华尔街的公司愿意要我。碰巧的是，毕业前两年股市和外汇的行情比较好，赚到了一点点资本，于是我决定回国做点生意。现在在大连从事餐饮行业，目前拥有万达广场的不出二品，大都会，福佳新天地，奥林匹克广场的莉蒂娅城堡4家芝士蛋糕店，青泥洼桥2路车站，长春路百盛，和即将开业的罗斯福地下的乔东家脆皮火烧三家火烧店。

引言

大学毕业之后第一次面对这么多人做演讲，坦率地说，非常的紧张。虽然年轻的时候我曾经畅想过很多次，功成名就之后能像我曾经的那些偶像一样和年轻的朋友们分享一下我是如何从一无所有走上人生巅峰的经验，然后语重心长的告诉大家，人活着不能像一根草而是要像一棵树，能走到金字塔顶端的只有雄鹰和蜗牛两种动物，我的成功你也可以复制等等。可是过了26岁之后我忽然意识到一个严肃的问题，就是自己的一生未必会取得很大的成就啊，所以当TEDxDUFE团队找到我说没关系即便你只是一个开小吃店的，我们也愿意为你提供这样一个和很多人交流思想的机会时，我的心情是多么地激动。因为公司还没上市，所以小草大树，雄鹰蜗牛，睡地板捡易拉罐这样的故事还不到说的时候。今天，只想和大家分享几个困扰了我和我身边的一些朋友十几年的问题，和在经历了一些变故和挫折后，我对这些问题的看法。

努力奋斗真的能实现梦想吗？

大家现在可以想象一下汪峰老师坐在转椅上，深情的望着你对你说，“你的梦想是什么？”周星驰老师的那句“做人如果没有梦想，和咸鱼有什么区别？”据说也激励了几代人。梦想这个东西是如此的重要，简直就是人生的一盏明灯。成功的人们成功的原因各不相同，但他们都不会忘记告诉你，无论到什么时候，都不曾忘记梦想，是他们成功的首要原因。以至于 我们这一代人对于人生意义的最通常的理解，就在于坚持梦想并最终实现它。可很少有人愿意面对的一件事情是，大部分人的梦想永远，没错，永远都实现不了。

你没听错，大部分人的梦想永远都实现不了。

先和大家分享一个我之前的梦想。上大学的时候我热衷于各式各样的赌博游戏，是学校旁边赌场的常客。我赌徒生涯的起点源于赌场里最基本游戏轮盘赌，轮盘上1到36个数字和两个0，赔率是1赔36。1到36分为红黑两色，押注红黑的赔率是1赔1。作为一个合格的接受过九年义务教育的人都知道，每一次轮盘开始转动的那一刻，都是一次纯粹的独立随机事件。但是赌博这件事情的魅力就在于，当你真正身处赌场，看到已经连续4次开出红色的时候，几乎所有人都会想把筹码压在黑色的那一面。而我当时的梦想，就是破译这其中的奥秘。我最初的策略非常简单，当连续三次开出奇数，就押注偶数，连续三次红色，就押注黑色。难以置信的事情发生了，在我严格的执行这个策略的情况下，前几次去赌场不但全身而退，每次都还赚了不少，以至于我产生了一种幻觉，也许游戏是有规律可循的，我已经看到了人生巅峰就在不远处向我招手。当然最终的结尾你们一定想到了，在经历过连续18个偶数，连续开出21次黑色后，我把之前赚到的钱都乖乖地还给了赌场。

后来我知道，我那个愚蠢的梦想叫做赌徒谬论，就不具体展开讲了。但它对我意义深刻，我终于明白了在纯粹的随机事件面前，一切规律都是无谓的。

生活中的事情有极个别和轮盘赌一样，属于纯粹的随机事件，比如双色球。可是几乎每一个中了双色球的人都会告诉你啊，他们花了多少精力去钻研往期号码，研究历史规律，付出了多少辛勤的努力最终获得了成功。实际上，即使是纯粹由随机性主导的事情，只要参与的人的基数足够大，小概率事件总会发生。有趣的是，几乎所有在随机事件中的受益者，都会把这完全由运气决定的结果归功于自己的努力上。不仅仅是参与者本身，旁观者也会这么认为。再比如，中国好声音的冠军嘛。

我们生活中遇到的所有事情基本可以分为三类，第一类纯粹由随机性决定，比如布朗运动和轮盘赌博，第二类纯粹由能力决定，比如英语六级考试，110米栏之类。第三类，也是我们最常遇到的，由能力和随机性共同决定，比如创业，投资，恋爱或是梦想。

我对励志大师们总告诉年轻人要不惜一切代价追逐梦想感到深深厌倦的原因就在于，大多数人的梦想虽然不是纯粹的双色球，但也绝对是由随机性主导的。在强大的随机性面前，付出再多辛勤的汗水，就好比夜以继日蹲在轮盘赌旁边渴望参透其中规律。前面说到中国好声音的冠军，张碧晨的那一句you are my destiny，听得我也是醉了。但毕竟那一刻，中国又有多少唱歌唱的和她一样好甚至更好的姑娘，如果真把成为好声音冠军作为一生的梦想，一生中都得在痛苦中度过。我个人很喜欢黄渤，但绝对不会用黄渤作为例子去激励一个我这 种长相差的年轻人不惜一切代价去追逐演员梦，注意是不惜一切代价。因为无论是唱歌还是演戏，再多的努力也只能让你变得很优秀，它们并不存在可以量化的评判标准，想成为万众瞩目明星，随机性的重要程度都远远大于实力。

我想，一个人在年轻的时候，做的每一件事情，能清楚的区分其中随机性所占的比例并能心平气和的接受它，在我看来就是最宝贵的财富。

那么在你的梦想中，运气又扮演了多重要的角色呢？当你深深的感知到这件事情的随机性也许不会青睐与你，是否还愿意坚持下去呢？对我而言，梦想永远是值得执着追求的，但我可以无比心平气和的接受，它就是永远无法实现。

既然连梦都实现不了，还有什么事情值得努力呢？

去年这个时候，我发过一条微博。

这些年我一直提醒自己一件事情，千万不要自己感动自己。大部分人看似的努力，不过是愚蠢导致的。什么熬夜看书到天亮，连续几天只睡几小时，多久没放假了，如果这些东西也值得夸耀，那么富士康流水线上任何一个人都比你努力多了。人难免天生有自怜的情绪，唯有时刻保持清醒，才能看清真正的价值在哪里。

这段话在网上的疯传，是我始料不及的。更出乎我意料之外的是，我在评论中看到了相当一部分的骂声，还有人认真的给我写下了相当深刻的话，“你在拥有自己的光亮时不要吹熄别人的蜡烛，你不能因为你自己的不喜欢就否定别人。”很莫名其妙是吧，即使你刚刚听完我上一段关于随机性的看法，你也会知道，我从来都不觉得努力是一件无所谓的事情。恰恰相反，我一直相信，在能力没达到一定程度之前，你连面对随机性的资格都没有啊。张碧晨能拿好声音冠军自然离不开运气，但换成杨幂，评委不但不会转身可能直接撒腿就跑了。

可现在问题来了，那究竟什么才算是有价值的努力？这可以从我那条微博说起。去年这个时候我和朋友在琢磨去大庆做点服装生意，决定去考察几个商场。我当时住在北京，因为之前晚上和朋友在外面玩的比较尽兴回到家里已经比较晚了，担心睡觉睡过头会错过航班，那晚上就直接在沙发上靠了一晚。那是我第一次去哈尔滨，十一月份已经很冷了，衣服拿的不足，下了飞机冻得头疼。又因为没有提前订票，到了哈尔滨之后才买的火车票，发现就只剩站票了。于是，当我一晚上没睡，冻得头晕眼花，又在绿皮火车上站了两个多小时之后，抵达大庆的那一瞬间我觉得自己实在是太不容易了，将来必须要写进回忆录里面。可是，回头仔细一想，这些所谓的“努力”对我最终把那个服装生意做好，没有半毛钱关系。更何况，如果我前一天晚上能早点上床睡觉，多准备点衣服，提前在网上把火车票订好，完全可以舒舒服服的达到同样的目的。?我的那次经历像是自己二十多年生活中很多事情的缩影，沉溺在对结果没有直接帮助只是因为自己遭受了一些痛苦的行为中，误以为那就是努力。

当我终于意识到我并不是唯一曾经把无意义的消耗当作努力的时候，忽然发现，原来生活中我觉得很努力的人，也许没那么勤奋，如果在正确的方向上坚持行动，超过他们也并不困难。

因为我们这一代人对于勤奋和努力的理解，几乎清一色的来自于学校，更精确的说，在前二十多年的生活中，我们眼中最努力的人，就是那些最能拼命看书和做题的人。实际上，这种理解是极其片面而幼稚的，因为看书和做题本身，都是为了一个极其鲜明的目的而存在的，就是通过考试。这种勤奋的付出极其纯粹，更多的复习时间，更高的复习强度，一般而言，都可以直接的提高考试的分数，它们之间的联系鲜明而直接，每个人都看的懂。?

但生活的美妙之处却在于，很多事情在我们没做到一定程度之前，是完全没法理解的。

这就好比学英语，十几年漫长的岁月里我都在幻想，要通过多么复杂的流程，多么精密的设计，多么全面的涉及和多么不可思议的努力，终于有那么一天，或许就我就能因为前期的那些无懈可击的学习，说一口比较流利的英语，像说中文一样，可以边说边想，而不是说每一句话之前设计它的句式时态词汇然后在心里复述几遍再看上去流利的背诵出来。谁不是这么设想的呢？可惜，它不仅从来没有实现，并且让我看不到有任何实现的趋势，对于每一个设立目标的人来说，没有比这更痛苦的感受。

但是在去了美国两年左右的时间之后，我忽然发现自己可以已经毫无障碍的说一口流利的英语了。这并非我采用了什么新的学习方法，而是因为去了印第安纳之后身边中国人很少，在没有选择的情况下，只能被迫用英语去交流和表达，在这个过程中我并没有认真想过自己每天进步了多少，也没有阶段性的检验学习效果，只是不停的去听和说，因为没有选择嘛。直到两年多后的忽然有一天我才意识到，咦，自己好像真的已经可以了。但是我确实无法总结出来是如何一步一步做到的，只是那两年的时间，我一直都在很不情愿地用英语去生活嘛。

一个人能获得的最可贵的能力，都和掌握一门语言一样，你所付出的努力不是能够获得即时回馈的，甚至在很长的一段时间内没有任何收获，直到积累到了一定的阶段后，忽然爆发出惊人的力量，连你自己都不清楚这一切是如何发生的。比如锻炼身体，读书写作，或者是做生意。当你经历了足够的量变终于引起质变时拥有的技能，大部分人是终身难以企及的，不是因为他们太笨，恰恰相反，因为他们都太聪明了。

触发人类行动的最基本原理被称为反射，我们是需要即时回馈的物种。所以绝大多数人对于世界的理解度是线性的，但更多情况下，事物却是以漫长的潜伏震荡后爆发突破的形式发展的。我现在时常觉得，人在少年时期更容易掌握语言，乐器，美术这些成年后很难学的技艺，并非那小时候就是天资聪颖，而是小孩子很少会一个星期质疑一次自己收获了多少，都是闷头一练就是好几年，直到学会了才知道哦自己已经会了。只有聪明的成年人，才相信1本书读懂易经，10句话揭秘马云的成功之道，30天成为吉他高手的故事。

简而言之，现实生活中，付出和结果之间往往没有那么立竿见影。在离开学校之后，当我们遇到的很多事情不再像做题和考试之间联系的那么紧密的时候，很多人的付出都是浅尝辄止的。而最可贵的努力，是选择一个正确的方向，那些无法立即获得回报的事情，依然能付出十年如一日的专注和热情，最终的结果也许不足以让你独孤求败，但足以出类拔萃.人这一生中是否有一个节点，过了之后一切都会好起来？

前面说了这么多，谈论的都与目标和实现目标有关。仔细想想，我们的一生好像都是在实现目标中挣扎着度过的。上初中的时候，老师告诉你，中考的淘汰率是最高的，只要闯过去，上了高中一切就好了。但上了高中的时候发现不是那么回事嘛，高中老师又说了啊，考上大学就进了天堂。于是你考上了大学，依然空虚迷茫各种草样年华，父母老师又告诉你，找到工作就好了。工作之后发现烦恼和忧虑依然都在，女朋友给你看马云的故事，告诉你等你事业有成就好了......你发现了吗，其实人这一辈子的每一个阶段都有新的痛苦和顾虑，周而复始，生生不息。绝对不会因为你考上大学，事业有成，迎娶了女神就从此happily ever after。但每一个阶段也有每一个阶段的快乐，无法替代。生活不是安徒生童话也不是好莱坞电影，从出生的那一刻起直到生命的尽头，都不存在什么节点，过去了之后一切幸福美满无忧无虑。

每一段岁月都有它存在的价值，没有高低贵贱之分，都不应该被辜负。而我能想到的人这一生能做的最愚蠢的事情，就是把全部人生的希望都孤注一掷到未来的某个节点上，而忽略了生活本身应有的乐趣。哪怕你以后真正实现了那个执念中的目标，才会发现它远远没你想的那么美好。年轻的时候和哥们在操场上打篮球喝可乐的快乐，是以后高尔夫会球所品里红酒替代不了的。尤其男生，千万不要总想着等将来老子有钱了如何如何，且不说你以后很可能不会太有钱，而且相信我，就是有钱了也真的不能怎么样。生命就在每天的生活里，一切执念都是虚妄，和身边的人愉快相处，认真安排好每一天的活动，用心去感受每一天的心境，就是生活的意义本身。这其实是我今天最想分享给你们的事情。

谢谢大家！

于宙

2014.11.26

华臣影城黑石礁店

第三篇：我们这一代 演讲稿

《我们这一代》 演讲稿

亲爱的女士们，先生们，各位老师、同学、朋友们：

大家好，今天我的演讲题目是《我们这一代》。

记得有这样一句话：在这些既漫长而又匆忙的日子里，很多事都正在和已经成为遥远的过去。但是我想说，正在和即将被过去铭记的便是我们这一代（此处语速要慢，强调！）。

我们这一代是幸福的一代。金龟子、董浩叔叔、鞠萍姐姐、月亮姐姐，这一个个熟悉而温馨的名字，不断勾勒着独属于我们这一代童年的记忆。伴随着那逝去的时光和他们老去的容颜，没有战争与硝烟的弥漫，没有灾害与生离死别的考验，我们送走了那段称作童年的美好时光，在青春的驿站停泊靠岸。但是，温室的过度庇护，不经任何风雨洗礼的成长历程，让我们又怎能不承受现实的打击。药家鑫杀人案，林森浩投毒案等各种90后的杀人案件让我们不禁低下羞愧的头，官二代、富二代那些令人发指的做作事件、无数青少年沉溺于网络的虚幻世界以致无法自拔等等，这些现实存在的事实更是让人们将我们这一代称作是“将要垮掉的一代”。曾经那：少年强则国强，少年富则国富，少年智则国智的贞贞誓言难道真的已经在我们这一代烟消云散？拜金主义、唯利是图、崇洋媚外、自私自利、颓废难道就是我们这一代最真实的代名词吗？不，我还要说：

我们这一代是敢于担当的一代。居里夫人曾经说过：我们应该不虚度一生，应该能够说：“我已经做了我能做的事。”

第四篇：TED英语演讲稿：我们为什么要睡觉

TED英语演讲稿：我们为什么要睡觉

简介：一生中，我们有三分之一的时间都在睡眠中度过。关于睡眠，你又了解多少?睡眠专家russell foster为我们解答为什么要睡觉，以及睡眠对健康的影响。

what i'd like to do today is talk about one of my favorite subjects, and that is the neuroscience of sleep.now, there is a sound--(alarm clock)--aah, it worked--a sound that is desperately, desperately familiar to most of us, and of course it's the sound of the alarm clock.and what that truly ghastly, awful sound does is stop the single most important behavioral experience that we have, and that's sleep.if you're an average sort of person, 36 percent of your life will be spent asleep, which means that if you live to 90, then 32 years will have been spent entirely asleep.now what that 32 years is telling us is that sleep at some level is important.and yet, for most of us, we don't give sleep a second thought.we throw it away.we really just don't think about sleep.and so what i'd like to do today is change your views, change your ideas and your thoughts about sleep.and the journey that i want to take you on, we need to start by going back in time.“enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.” any ideas who said that? shakespeare's julius caesar.yes, let me give you a few more quotes.“o sleep, o gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse, how have i frighted thee?” shakespeare again, from--i won't say it--the scottish play.[correction: henry iv, part 2](laughter)from the same time: “sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” extremely prophetic, by thomas dekker, another elizabethan dramatist.but if we jump forward 400 years, the tone about sleep changes somewhat.this is from thomas edison, from the beginning of the 20th century.“sleep is a criminal waste of time and a heritage from our cave days.” bang.(laughter)and if we also jump into the 1980s, some of you may remember that margaret thatcher was reported to have said, “sleep is for wimps.” and of course the infamous--what was his name?--the infamous gordon gekko from “wall street” said, “money never sleeps.”

what do we do in the 20th century about sleep? well, of course, we use thomas edison's light bulb to invade the night, and we occupied the dark, and in the process of this occupation, we've treated sleep as an illness, almost.we've treated it as an enemy.at most now, i suppose, we tolerate the need for sleep, and at worst perhaps many of us think of sleep as an illness that needs some sort of a cure.and our ignorance about sleep is really quite profound.why is it? why do we abandon sleep in our thoughts? well, it's because you don't do anything much while you're asleep, it seems.you don't eat.you don't drink.and you don't have sex.well, most of us anyway.and so therefore it's--sorry.it's a complete waste of time, right? wrong.actually, sleep is an incredibly important part of our biology, and neuroscientists are beginning to explain why it's so very important.so let's move to the brain.now, here we have a brain.this is donated by a social scientist, and they said they didn't know what it was, or indeed how to use it, so--(laughter)sorry.so i borrowed it.i don't think they noticed.okay.(laughter)

the point i'm trying to make is that when you're asleep, this thing doesn't shut down.in fact, some areas of the brain are actually more active during the sleep state than during the wake state.the other thing that's really important about sleep is that it doesn't arise from a single structure within the brain, but is to some extent a network property, and if we flip the brain on its back--i love this little bit of spinal cord here--this bit here is the hypothalamus, and right under there is a whole raft of interesting structures, not least the biological clock.the biological clock tells us when it's good to be up, when it's good to be asleep, and what that structure does is interact with a whole raft of other areas within the hypothalamus，the

lateral

hypothalamus，the ventrolateral preoptic nuclei.all of those combine, and they send projections down to the brain stem here.the brain stem then projects forward and bathes the cortex, this wonderfully wrinkly bit over here, with neurotransmitters that keep us awake and essentially provide us with our consciousness.so sleep arises from a whole raft of different interactions within the brain, and essentially, sleep is turned on and off as a result of a range of

okay.so where have we got to? we've said that sleep is complicated and it takes 32 years of our life.but what i haven't explained is what sleep is about.so why do we sleep? and it won't surprise any of you that, of course, the scientists, we don't have a consensus.there are dozens of different ideas about why we sleep, and i'm going to outline three of those.the first is sort of the restoration idea, and it's somewhat intuitive.essentially, all the stuff we've burned up during the day, we restore, we replace, we rebuild during the night.and indeed, as an explanation, it goes back to aristotle, so that's, what, 2,300 years ago.it's gone in and out of fashion.it's fashionable at the moment because what's been shown is that within the brain, a whole raft of genes have been shown to be turned on only during sleep, and those genes are associated with restoration and metabolic pathways.so there's good evidence for the whole restoration hypothesis.what about energy conservation? again, perhaps intuitive.you essentially sleep to save calories.now, when you do the sums, though, it doesn't really pan out.if you compare an individual who has slept at night, or stayed awake and hasn't moved very much, the energy saving of sleeping is about 110 calories a night.now, that's the equivalent of a hot dog bun.now, i would say that a hot dog bun is kind of a meager return for such a complicated and demanding behavior as sleep.so i'm less convinced by the energy conservation idea.but the third idea i'm quite attracted to, which is brain processing and memory consolidation.what we know is that, if after you've tried to learn a task, and you sleep-deprive individuals, the ability to learn that task is smashed.it's really hugely attenuated.so sleep and memory consolidation is also very important.however, it's not just the laying down of memory and recalling it.what's turned out to be really exciting is that our ability to come up with novel solutions to complex problems is hugely enhanced by a night of sleep.in fact, it's been estimated to give us a threefold advantage.sleeping at night enhances our creativity.and what seems to be going on is that, in the brain, those neural connections that are important, those synaptic connections that are important, are linked and strengthened, while those that are less important tend to fade away and be less important.okay.so we've had three explanations for why we might sleep, and i think the important thing to realize is that the details will vary, and it's probable we sleep for multiple different reasons.but sleep is not an indulgence.it's not some sort of thing that we can take on board rather casually.i think that sleep was once likened to an upgrade from economy to business class, you know, the equiavlent of.it's not even an upgrade from economy to first class.the critical thing to realize is that if you don't sleep, you don't fly.essentially, you never get there, and what's extraordinary about much of our society these days is that we are desperately sleep-deprived.so let's now look at sleep deprivation.huge sectors of society are sleep-deprived, and let's look at our sleep-o-meter.so in the 1950s, good data suggests that most of us were getting around about eight hours of sleep a night.nowadays, we sleep one and a half to two hours less every night, so we're in the six-and-a-half-hours-every-night

league.for teenagers, it's worse, much worse.they need nine hours for full brain performance, and many of them, on a school night, are only getting five hours of sleep.it's simply not enough.if we think about other sectors of society, the aged, if you are aged, then your ability to sleep in a single block is somewhat disrupted, and many sleep, again, less than five hours a night.shift work.shift work is extraordinary, perhaps 20 percent of the working population, and the body clock does not shift to the demands of working at night.it's locked onto the same light-dark cycle as the rest of us.so when the poor old shift worker is going home to try and sleep during the day, desperately tired, the body clock is saying, “wake up.this is the time to be awake.” so the quality of sleep that you get as a night shift worker is usually very poor, again in that sort of five-hour region.and then, of course, tens of millions of people suffer from jet lag.so who here has jet lag? well, my goodness gracious.well, thank you very much indeed for not falling asleep, because that's what your brain is craving.one of the things that the brain does is indulge in micro-sleeps, this involuntary falling asleep, and you have essentially no control over it.now, micro-sleeps can be sort of somewhat embarrassing, but they can also be deadly.it's been estimated that 31 percent of drivers will fall asleep at the wheel at least once in their life, and in the , the statistics are pretty good: 100,000 accidents on the freeway have been associated with tiredness, loss of vigilance, and falling asleep.a hundred thousand a year.it's extraordinary.at another level of terror, we dip into the tragic accidents at chernobyl and indeed the space shuttle challenger, which was so tragically lost.and in the investigations that followed those disasters, poor judgment as a result of extended shift work and loss of vigilance and tiredness was attributed to a big chunk of those disasters.so when you're tired, and you lack sleep, you have poor memory, you have poor creativity, you have increased impulsiveness, and you have overall poor judgment.but my friends, it's so much worse than that.(laughter)

if you are a tired brain, the brain is craving things to wake it up.so drugs, stimulants.caffeine represents the stimulant of choice across much of the western world.much of the day is fueled by caffeine, and if you're a really naughty tired brain, nicotine.and of course, you're fueling the waking state with these stimulants, and then of course it gets to 11 o'clock at night, and the brain says to itself, “ah, well actually, i need to be asleep fairly shortly.what do we do about that when i'm feeling completely wired?” well, of course, you then resort to alcohol.now alcohol, short-term, you know, once or twice, to use to mildly sedate you, can be very useful.it can actually ease the sleep transition.but what you must be so aware of is that alcohol doesn't provide sleep, a biological mimic for sleep.it sedates you.so it actually harms some of the neural proccessing that's going on during memory consolidation and memory recall.so it's a short-term acute measure, but for goodness sake, don't become addicted to alcohol as a way of getting to sleep every night.another connection between loss of sleep is weight gain.if you sleep around about five hours or less every night, then you have a 50 percent likelihood of being obese.what's the connection here? well, sleep loss seems to give rise to the release of the hormone ghrelin, the hunger hormone.ghrelin is released.it gets to the brain.the brain says, “i need carbohydrates,” and what it does is seek out carbohydrates and particularly sugars.so there's a link between tiredness and the metabolic predisposition for weight gain.stress.tired people are massively stressed.and one of the things of stress, of course, is loss of memory, which is what i sort of just then had a little lapse of.but stress is so much more.so if you're acutely stressed, not a great problem, but it's sustained stress associated with sleep loss that's the problem.so sustained stress leads to suppressed immunity, and so tired people tend to have higher rates of overall infection, and there's some very good studies showing that shift workers, for example, have higher rates of cancer.increased levels of stress throw glucose into the circulation.glucose becomes a dominant part of the vasculature and essentially you become glucose intolerant.therefore, diabetes 2.stress increases cardiovascular disease as a result of raising blood pressure.so there's a whole raft of things associated with sleep loss that are more than just a mildly impaired brain, which is where i think most people think that sleep loss resides.so at this point in the talk, this is a nice time to think, well, do you think on the whole i'm getting enough sleep? so a quick show of hands.who feels that they're getting enough sleep here? oh.well, that's pretty impressive.good.we'll talk more about that later, about what are your tips.so most of us, of course, ask the question, “well, how do i know whether i'm getting enough sleep?” well, it's not rocket science.if you need an alarm clock to get you out of bed in the morning, if you are taking a long time to get up, if you need lots of stimulants, if you're grumpy, if you're irritable, if you're told by your work colleagues that you're looking tired and irritable, chances are you are sleep-deprived.listen to them.listen to yourself.what do you do? well--and this is slightly offensive--sleep for dummies: make your bedroom a haven for sleep.the first critical thing is make it as dark as you possibly can, and also make it slightly cool.very important.actually, reduce your amount of light exposure at least half an hour before you go to bed.light increases levels of alertness and will delay sleep.what's the last thing that most of us do before we go to bed? we stand in a massively lit bathroom looking into the mirror cleaning our teeth.it's the worst thing we can possibly do before we went to sleep.turn off those mobile phones.turn off those computers.turn off all of those things that are also going to excite the brain.try not to drink caffeine too late in the day, ideally not after lunch.now, we've set about reducing light exposure before you go to bed, but light exposure in the morning is very good at setting the biological clock to the light-dark cycle.so seek out morning light.basically, listen to yourself.wind down.do those sorts of things that you know are going to ease you off into the honey-heavy dew of slumber.okay.that's some facts.what about some myths?

teenagers are lazy.no.poor things.they have a biological predisposition to go to bed late and get up late, so give them a break.we need eight hours of sleep a night.that's an average.some people need more.some people need less.and what you need to do is listen to your body.do you need that much or do you need more? simple as that.old people need less sleep.not true.the sleep demands of the aged do not go down.essentially, sleep fragments and becomes less robust, but sleep requirements do not go down.and the fourth myth is, early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.well that's wrong at so many different levels.(laughter)there is no, no evidence that getting up early and going to bed early gives you more wealth at all.there's no difference in socioeconomic status.in my experience, the only difference between morning people and evening people is that those people that get up in the morning early are just horribly smug.(laughter)(applause)

okay.so for the last part, the last few minutes, what i want to do is change gears and talk about some really new, breaking areas of neuroscience, which is the association between mental health, mental illness and sleep disruption.we've known for 130 years that in severe mental illness, there is always, always sleep disruption, but it's been largely ignored.in the 1970s, when people started to think about this again, they said, “yes, well, of course you have sleep disruption in schizophrenia because they're on anti-psychotics.it's the anti-psychotics causing the sleep problems,” ignoring the fact that for a hundred years previously, sleep disruption

had

been

reported

before anti-psychotics.so what's going on? lots of groups, several groups are studying conditions like depression, schizophrenia and bipolar, and what's going on in terms of sleep disruption.we have a big study which we published last year on schizophrenia, and the data were quite extraordinary.in those individuals with schizophrenia, much of the time, they were awake during the night phase and then they were asleep during the day.other groups showed no 24-hour patterns whatsoever.their sleep was absolutely smashed.and some had no ability to regulate their sleep by the light-dark cycle.they were getting up later and later and later and later each night.it was smashed.so what's going on? and the really exciting news is that mental illness and sleep are not simply associated but they are physically linked within the brain.the neural networks that predispose you to normal sleep, give you normal sleep, and those that give you normal mental health are overlapping.and what's the evidence for that? well, genes that have been shown to be very important in the generation of normal sleep, when mutated, when changed, also predispose individuals to mental health problems.and last year, we published a study which showed that a gene that's been linked to schizophrenia, which, when mutated, also smashes the sleep.so we have evidence of a genuine mechanistic overlap between these two important systems.other work flowed from these studies.the first was that sleep disruption actually precedes certain types of mental illness, and we've shown that in those young individuals who are at high risk of developing bipolar disorder, they already have a sleep abnormality prior to any clinical diagnosis of bipolar.the other bit of data was that sleep disruption may actually exacerbate, make worse the mental illness state.my colleague dan freeman has used a range of agents which have stabilized sleep and reduced levels of paranoia in those individuals by 50 percent.so what have we got? we've got, in these connections, some really exciting things.in terms of the neuroscience, by understanding the neuroscience of these two systems, we're really beginning to understand how both sleep and mental illness are generated and regulated within the brain.the second area is that if we can use sleep and sleep disruption as an early warning signal, then we have the chance of going in.if we know that these individuals are vulnerable, early intervention then becomes possible.and the third, which i think is the most exciting, is that we can think of the sleep centers within the brain as a new therapeutic target.stabilize sleep in those individuals who are vulnerable, we can certainly make them healthier, but also alleviate some of the appalling symptoms of mental illness.so let me just finish.what i started by saying is take sleep seriously.our attitudes toward sleep are so very different from a pre-industrial age, when we were almost wrapped in a duvet.we used to understand intuitively the importance of sleep.and this isn't some sort of crystal-waving nonsense.this is a pragmatic response to good health.if you have good sleep, it increases your concentration, attention, decision-making, creativity, social skills, health.if you get sleep, it reduces your mood changes, your stress, your levels of anger, your impulsivity, and your tendency to drink and take drugs.and we finished by saying that an understanding of the neuroscience of sleep is really informing the way we think about some of the causes of mental illness, and indeed is providing us new ways to treat these incredibly debilitating conditions.jim butcher, the fantasy writer, said, “sleep is god.go worship.” and i can only recommend that you do the same.thank you for your attention.(applause)

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ted演讲稿 我们为什么要睡眠英文

简介：一生中，我们有三分之一的时间都在睡眠中度过。关于睡眠，你又了解多少?睡眠专家Russell Foster为我们解答为什么要睡觉，以及睡眠对健康的影响。

What I'd like to do today is talk about one of my favorite subjects, and that is the neuroscience of sleep.Now, there is a sound--(Alarm clock)--aah, it worked--a sound that is desperately, desperately familiar to most of us, and of course it's the sound of the alarm clock.And what that truly ghastly, awful sound does is stop the single most important behavioral experience that we have, and that's sleep.If you're an average sort of person, 36 percent of your life will be spent asleep, which means that if you live to 90, then 32 years will have been spent entirely asleep.Now what that 32 years is telling us is that sleep at some level is important.And yet, for most of us, we don't give sleep a second thought.We throw it away.We really just don't think about sleep.And so what I'd like to do today is change your views, change your ideas and your thoughts about sleep.And the journey that I want to take you on, we need to start by going back in time.“Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.” Any ideas who said that? Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.Yes, let me give you a few more quotes.“O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee?” Shakespeare again, from--I won't say it--the Scottish play.(Laughter)From the same time: “Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” Extremely prophetic, by Thomas Dekker, another Elizabethan dramatist.But if we jump forward 400 years, the tone about sleep changes somewhat.This is from Thomas Edison, from the beginning of the 20th century.“Sleep is a criminal waste of time and a heritage from our cave days.” Bang.(Laughter)And if we also jump into the 1980s, some of you may remember that Margaret Thatcher was reported to have said, “Sleep is for wimps.” And of course the infamous--what was his name?--the infamous Gordon Gekko from “Wall Street” said, “Money never sleeps.”

What do we do in the 20th century about sleep? Well, of course, we use Thomas Edison's light bulb to invade the night, and we occupied the dark, and in the process of this occupation, we've treated sleep as an illness, almost.We've treated it as an enemy.At most now, I suppose, we tolerate the need for sleep, and at worst perhaps many of us think of sleep as an illness that needs some sort of a cure.And our ignorance about sleep is really quite profound.Why is it? Why do we abandon sleep in our thoughts? Well, it's because you don't do anything much while you're asleep, it seems.You don't eat.You don't drink.And you don't have sex.Well, most of us anyway.And so therefore it's--Sorry.It's a complete waste of time, right? Wrong.Actually, sleep is an incredibly important part of our biology, and neuroscientists are beginning to explain why it's so very important.So let's move to the brain.Now, here we have a brain.This is donated by a social scientist, and they said they didn't know what it was, or indeed how to use it, so--(Laughter)Sorry.So I borrowed it.I don't think they noticed.Okay.(Laughter)

The point I'm trying to make is that when you're asleep, this thing doesn't shut down.In fact, some areas of the brain are actually more active during the sleep state than during the wake state.The other thing that's really important about sleep is that it doesn't arise from a single structure within the brain, but is to some extent a network property, and if we flip the brain on its back--I love this little bit of spinal cord here--this bit here is the hypothalamus, and right under there is a whole raft of interesting structures, not least the biological clock.The biological clock tells us when it's good to be up, when it's good to be asleep, and what that structure does is interact with a whole raft of other areas within the hypothalamus，the

lateral

hypothalamus，the ventrolateral preoptic nuclei.All of those combine, and they send projections down to the brain stem here.The brain stem then projects forward and bathes the cortex, this wonderfully wrinkly bit over here, with neurotransmitters that keep us awake and essentially provide us with our consciousness.So sleep arises from a whole raft of different interactions within the brain, and essentially, sleep is turned on and off as a result of a range of

Okay.So where have we got to? We've said that sleep is complicated and it takes 32 years of our life.But what I haven't explained is what sleep is about.So why do we sleep? And it won't surprise any of you that, of course, the scientists, we don't have a consensus.There are dozens of different ideas about why we sleep, and I'm going to outline three of those.The first is sort of the restoration idea, and it's somewhat intuitive.Essentially, all the stuff we've burned up during the day, we restore, we replace, we rebuild during the night.And indeed, as an explanation, it goes back to Aristotle, so that's, what, 2,300 years ago.It's gone in and out of fashion.It's fashionable at the moment because what's been shown is that within the brain, a whole raft of genes have been shown to be turned on only during sleep, and those genes are associated with restoration and metabolic pathways.So there's good evidence for the whole restoration hypothesis.What about energy conservation? Again, perhaps intuitive.You essentially sleep to save calories.Now, when you do the sums, though, it doesn't really pan out.If you compare an individual who has slept at night, or stayed awake and hasn't moved very much, the energy saving of sleeping is about 110 calories a night.Now, that's the equivalent of a hot dog bun.Now, I would say that a hot dog bun is kind of a meager return for such a complicated and demanding behavior as sleep.So I'm less convinced by the energy conservation idea.But the third idea I'm quite attracted to, which is brain processing and memory consolidation.What we know is that, if after you've tried to learn a task, and you sleep-deprive individuals, the ability to learn that task is smashed.It's really hugely attenuated.So sleep and memory consolidation is also very important.However, it's not just the laying down of memory and recalling it.What's turned out to be really exciting is that our ability to come up with novel solutions to complex problems is hugely enhanced by a night of sleep.In fact, it's been estimated to give us a threefold advantage.Sleeping at night enhances our creativity.And what seems to be going on is that, in the brain, those neural connections that are important, those synaptic connections that are important, are linked and strengthened, while those that are less important tend to fade away and be less important.Okay.So we've had three explanations for why we might sleep, and I think the important thing to realize is that the details will vary, and it's probable we sleep for multiple different reasons.But sleep is not an indulgence.It's not some sort of thing that we can take on board rather casually.I think that sleep was once likened to an upgrade from economy to business class, you know, the equiavlent of.It's not even an upgrade from economy to first class.The critical thing to realize is that if you don't sleep, you don't fly.Essentially, you never get there, and what's extraordinary about much of our society these days is that we are desperately sleep-deprived.So let's now look at sleep deprivation.Huge sectors of society are sleep-deprived, and let's look at our sleep-o-meter.So in the 1950s, good data suggests that most of us were getting around about eight hours of sleep a night.Nowadays, we sleep one and a half to two hours less every night, so we're in the six-and-a-half-hours-every-night

league.For teenagers, it's worse, much worse.They need nine hours for full brain performance, and many of them, on a school night, are only getting five hours of sleep.It's simply not enough.If we think about other sectors of society, the aged, if you are aged, then your ability to sleep in a single block is somewhat disrupted, and many sleep, again, less than five hours a night.Shift work.Shift work is extraordinary, perhaps 20 percent of the working population, and the body clock does not shift to the demands of working at night.It's locked onto the same light-dark cycle as the rest of us.So when the poor old shift worker is going home to try and sleep during the day, desperately tired, the body clock is saying, “Wake up.This is the time to be awake.” So the quality of sleep that you get as a night shift worker is usually very poor, again in that sort of five-hour region.And then, of course, tens of millions of people suffer from jet lag.So who here has jet lag? Well, my goodness gracious.Well, thank you very much indeed for not falling asleep, because that's what your brain is craving.One of the things that the brain does is indulge in micro-sleeps, this involuntary falling asleep, and you have essentially no control over it.Now, micro-sleeps can be sort of somewhat embarrassing, but they can also be deadly.It's been estimated that 31 percent of drivers will fall asleep at the wheel at least once in their life, and in the , the statistics are pretty good: 100,000 accidents on the freeway have been associated with tiredness, loss of vigilance, and falling asleep.A hundred thousand a year.It's extraordinary.At another level of terror, we dip into the tragic accidents at Chernobyl and indeed the space shuttle Challenger, which was so tragically lost.And in the investigations that followed those disasters, poor judgment as a result of extended shift work and loss of vigilance and tiredness was attributed to a big chunk of those disasters.So when you're tired, and you lack sleep, you have poor memory, you have poor creativity, you have increased impulsiveness, and you have overall poor judgment.But my friends, it's so much worse than that.(Laughter)

If you are a tired brain, the brain is craving things to wake it up.So drugs, stimulants.Caffeine represents the stimulant of choice across much of the Western world.Much of the day is fueled by caffeine, and if you're a really naughty tired brain, nicotine.And of course, you're fueling the waking state with these stimulants, and then of course it gets to 11 o'clock at night, and the brain says to itself, “Ah, well actually, I need to be asleep fairly shortly.What do we do about that when I'm feeling completely wired?” Well, of course, you then resort to alcohol.Now alcohol, short-term, you know, once or twice, to use to mildly sedate you, can be very useful.It can actually ease the sleep transition.But what you must be so aware of is that alcohol doesn't provide sleep, a biological mimic for sleep.It sedates you.So it actually harms some of the neural proccessing that's going on during memory consolidation and memory recall.So it's a short-term acute measure, but for goodness sake, don't become addicted to alcohol as a way of getting to sleep every night.Another connection between loss of sleep is weight gain.If you sleep around about five hours or less every night, then you have a 50 percent likelihood of being obese.What's the connection here? Well, sleep loss seems to give rise to the release of the hormone ghrelin, the hunger hormone.Ghrelin is released.It gets to the brain.The brain says, “I need carbohydrates,” and what it does is seek out carbohydrates and particularly sugars.So there's a link between tiredness and the metabolic predisposition for weight gain.Stress.Tired people are massively stressed.And one of the things of stress, of course, is loss of memory, which is what I sort of just then had a little lapse of.But stress is so much more.So if you're acutely stressed, not a great problem, but it's sustained stress associated with sleep loss that's the problem.So sustained stress leads to suppressed immunity, and so tired people tend to have higher rates of overall infection, and there's some very good studies showing that shift workers, for example, have higher rates of cancer.Increased levels of stress throw glucose into the circulation.Glucose becomes a dominant part of the vasculature and essentially you become glucose intolerant.Therefore, diabetes 2.Stress increases cardiovascular disease as a result of raising blood pressure.So there's a whole raft of things associated with sleep loss that are more than just a mildly impaired brain, which is where I think most people think that sleep loss resides.So at this point in the talk, this is a nice time to think, well, do you think on the whole I'm getting enough sleep? So a quick show of hands.Who feels that they're getting enough sleep here? Oh.Well, that's pretty impressive.Good.We'll talk more about that later, about what are your tips.So most of us, of course, ask the question, “Well, how do I know whether I'm getting enough sleep?” Well, it's not rocket science.If you need an alarm clock to get you out of bed in the morning, if you are taking a long time to get up, if you need lots of stimulants, if you're grumpy, if you're irritable, if you're told by your work colleagues that you're looking tired and irritable, chances are you are sleep-deprived.Listen to them.Listen to yourself.What do you do? Well--and this is slightly offensive--sleep for dummies: Make your bedroom a haven for sleep.The first critical thing is make it as dark as you possibly can, and also make it slightly cool.Very important.Actually, reduce your amount of light exposure at least half an hour before you go to bed.Light increases levels of alertness and will delay sleep.What's the last thing that most of us do before we go to bed? We stand in a massively lit bathroom looking into the mirror cleaning our teeth.It's the worst thing we can possibly do before we went to sleep.Turn off those mobile phones.Turn off those computers.Turn off all of those things that are also going to excite the brain.Try not to drink caffeine too late in the day, ideally not after lunch.Now, we've set about reducing light exposure before you go to bed, but light exposure in the morning is very good at setting the biological clock to the light-dark cycle.So seek out morning light.Basically, listen to yourself.Wind down.Do those sorts of things that you know are going to ease you off into the honey-heavy dew of slumber.Okay.That's some facts.What about some myths?

Teenagers are lazy.No.Poor things.They have a biological predisposition to go to bed late and get up late, so give them a break.We need eight hours of sleep a night.That's an average.Some people need more.Some people need less.And what you need to do is listen to your body.Do you need that much or do you need more? Simple as that.Old people need less sleep.Not true.The sleep demands of the aged do not go down.Essentially, sleep fragments and becomes less robust, but sleep requirements do not go down.And the fourth myth is, early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.Well that's wrong at so many different levels.(Laughter)There is no, no evidence that getting up early and going to bed early gives you more wealth at all.There's no difference in socioeconomic status.In my experience, the only difference between morning people and evening people is that those people that get up in the morning early are just horribly smug.(Laughter)(Applause)

Okay.So for the last part, the last few minutes, what I want to do is change gears and talk about some really new, breaking areas of neuroscience, which is the association between mental health, mental illness and sleep disruption.We've known for 130 years that in severe mental illness, there is always, always sleep disruption, but it's been largely ignored.In the 1970s, when people started to think about this again, they said, “Yes, well, of course you have sleep disruption in schizophrenia because they're on anti-psychotics.It's the anti-psychotics causing the sleep problems,” ignoring the fact that for a hundred years previously, sleep disruption

had

been

reported

before anti-psychotics.So what's going on? Lots of groups, several groups are studying conditions like depression, schizophrenia and bipolar, and what's going on in terms of sleep disruption.We have a big study which we published last year on schizophrenia, and the data were quite extraordinary.In those individuals with schizophrenia, much of the time, they were awake during the night phase and then they were asleep during the day.Other groups showed no 24-hour patterns whatsoever.Their sleep was absolutely smashed.And some had no ability to regulate their sleep by the light-dark cycle.They were getting up later and later and later and later each night.It was smashed.So what's going on? And the really exciting news is that mental illness and sleep are not simply associated but they are physically linked within the brain.The neural networks that predispose you to normal sleep, give you normal sleep, and those that give you normal mental health are overlapping.And what's the evidence for that? Well, genes that have been shown to be very important in the generation of normal sleep, when mutated, when changed, also predispose individuals to mental health problems.And last year, we published a study which showed that a gene that's been linked to schizophrenia, which, when mutated, also smashes the sleep.So we have evidence of a genuine mechanistic overlap between these two important systems.Other work flowed from these studies.The first was that sleep disruption actually precedes certain types of mental illness, and we've shown that in those young individuals who are at high risk of developing bipolar disorder, they already have a sleep abnormality prior to any clinical diagnosis of bipolar.The other bit of data was that sleep disruption may actually exacerbate, make worse the mental illness state.My colleague Dan Freeman has used a range of agents which have stabilized sleep and reduced levels of paranoia in those individuals by 50 percent.So what have we got? We've got, in these connections, some really exciting things.In terms of the neuroscience, by understanding the neuroscience of these two systems, we're really beginning to understand how both sleep and mental illness are generated and regulated within the brain.The second area is that if we can use sleep and sleep disruption as an early warning signal, then we have the chance of going in.If we know that these individuals are vulnerable, early intervention then becomes possible.And the third, which I think is the most exciting, is that we can think of the sleep centers within the brain as a new therapeutic target.Stabilize sleep in those individuals who are vulnerable, we can certainly make them healthier, but also alleviate some of the appalling symptoms of mental illness.So let me just finish.What I started by saying is take sleep seriously.Our attitudes toward sleep are so very different from a pre-industrial age, when we were almost wrapped in a duvet.We used to understand intuitively the importance of sleep.And this isn't some sort of crystal-waving nonsense.This is a pragmatic response to good health.If you have good sleep, it increases your concentration, attention, decision-making, creativity, social skills, health.If you get sleep, it reduces your mood changes, your stress, your levels of anger, your impulsivity, and your tendency to drink and take drugs.And we finished by saying that an understanding of the neuroscience of sleep is really informing the way we think about some of the causes of mental illness, and indeed is providing us new ways to treat these incredibly debilitating conditions.Jim Butcher, the fantasy writer, said, “Sleep is God.Go worship.” And I can only recommend that you do the same.Thank you for your attention.(Applause)