This is a 10 minute podcast created as a first-year BA (Hons) Radio coursework piece - submitted March 2016.

Everybody knows that they have to sleep. It's just something that we do. But why... and what could happen if we don't?

-- Production Notes --

I've always considered it fruitful, when conducting research, to study things in which I have a genuine interest. This is certainly true of the subject of sleep. I've always found it truly fascinating that sleep has the ability to conjure up entire worlds within the confines of our own heads. So when I was tasked with putting together a ten-minute podcast as part of my coursework, this was my starting point. Arguably the biggest 'question mark' hanging over the project at the outset was the need to identify a suitable interviewee, but I was soon able to track down a qualified expert.

It was a pleasure to conduct a studio interview with Dr Andrew Mayers (Senior Psychology Lecturer, Bournemouth University) on the subject of sleep, and it is this which forms the backbone of the finished piece. My thanks to Dr Mayers for kindly giving his time for the interview, which took place in February.

You can visit Dr Mayers' website at http://www.andrewmayers.info/ 

From here, this was thankfully one of those projects whereby the rest of the programme fell into place relatively easily. In addition to the main interview, I also conducted a series of vox-pops with students at the university to gather their anecdotes on the subject of sleep - or a lack thereof... (As you can imagine, students' sleep patterns can be rather erratic to put it mildly.)

Finally, the podcast was completed with linking narration and some excellent music by Kevin MacLeod - including the appropriately-named 'Early Riser'! (See credits below.) It was edited with Adobe Audition. 

Individually, this coursework piece achieved a first class score of 70%.

-- Music Credits --

"Early Riser" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"Garden Music" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ian Redman Radio