Streaming platform MasterClass now offers a new class on the science of better sleep, led by Matthew Walker, PhD. As a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science, Walker pulls from more than 20 years of research to share the science behind sleep and its impact on physical, mental, and emotional health. MasterClass subscribers get unlimited access to all 100+ instructors with an annual membership.

“Sleep has never come harder for folks around the world,” says David Rogier, founder and CEO of MasterClass, in a release. “In his MasterClass, Matthew desconstructs how sleep impacts almost everything we do and how to find more of it. There has never been a more important time for this class.”

In his MasterClass, Walker dives into the science of sleep, providing tools and insightful tips to help viewers fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. He breaks down the scientific explanations behind the stages of sleep and how different parts of the brain are hard at work during sleep. He also explains how sleep plays a vital role in sparking our memory, creativity, and ability to learn, as well as the impact of alcohol and caffeine on sleep, how to prevent sleep debt and how quality sleep can help prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

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“Put simply, sleep is the elixir of life and the Swiss Army knife of health,” Walker says in a release. “My MasterClass will consolidate decades of scientific research and my devotion to this topic into a comprehensive look at the science behind sleep. As a result, the class will offer the necessary guidance to help you understand what your brain and body are doing while you’re sleeping, and how to improve your own sleep.”

Hailing from Liverpool, England, Walker earned his degree in neuroscience from the University of Nottingham and his PhD in neurophysiology from the Medical Research Council in London before becoming a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University. Currently, he is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science, which investigates the role of sleep in human health and disease by using brain imaging methods (MRI, PET scanning), high-density sleep EEG recordings, genomics, proteomics, autonomic physiology, brain stimulation, and cognitive testing.

Walker has published more than 100 scientific research studies examining the impact of sleep on human brain function in healthy and diseased populations. He has received numerous funding awards from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and was recently awarded the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. In 2017, he published the New York Times bestseller Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, which provides a complete description of, and prescription for, sleep. It answers critical questions, such as how do caffeine and alcohol affect sleep, what happens during dreaming, why sleep patterns decline across a lifetime, how sleep contributes to Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer and obesity, and whether sleep pills do long-term damage, and how we can enhance our sleep