千文网小编为你整理了多篇相关的《ted中英文演讲稿(优秀范文六篇)》，但愿对你工作学习有帮助，当然你在千文网还可以找到更多《ted中英文演讲稿(优秀范文六篇)》。
第一篇：ted演讲稿2022
in a funny, rapid-fire 4 minutes, ale_is ohanian of reddit tells thereal-life fable of one humpback whale's rise to web stardom. the lesson ofmister splashy pants is a shoo-in classic for meme-makers and marketers in thefacebook age.
这段有趣的4分钟演讲，来自 reddit 网站创始人 ale_isohanian。他讲了一个座头鲸在网上一夜成名的真实故事。“溅水先生”的故事是脸书时代米姆(小编注：根据《牛津英语词典》，meme被定义为：“文化的基本单位，通过非遗传的方式，特别是模仿而得到传递。”)制造者和传播者共同创造的经典案例。
演讲的开头，ale_is ohanian介绍了“溅水先生”的故事。“绿色和平”环保组织为了阻止日本的捕鲸行为，在一只鲸鱼体内植入新片，并发起一个为这只座头鲸起名的活动。“绿色和平”组织希望起低调奢华有内涵的名字，但经过reddit的宣传和推动，票数最多的却是非常不高大上的“溅水先生”这个名字。经过几番折腾，“绿色和平”接受了这个名字，并且这一行动成功阻止了日本捕鲸活动。
演讲内容节选(ale_ ohanian 从社交网络的角度分析这个事件)
and actually, redditors in the internet community were happy toparticipate, but they weren't whale lovers. a few of them certainly were. butwe're talking about a lot of people who were just really interested and reallycaught up in this great meme, and in fact someone from greenpeace came back onthe site and thanked reddit for its participation. but this wasn't really out ofaltruism. this was just out of interest in doing something cool.
事实上，reddit的社区用户们很高兴参与其中，但他们并非是鲸鱼爱好者。当然，他们中的一小部分或许是。我们看到的是一群人积极地去参与到这个米姆(社会活动)中，实际上“绿色和平”中的人登陆 ，感谢大家的参与。网友们这么做并非是完全的利他主义。他们只是觉得做这件事很酷。
and this is kind of how the internet works. this is that great big secret.because the internet provides this level playing field. your link is just asgood as your link, which is just as good as my link. as long as we have abrowser, anyone can get to any website no matter how big a budget you have.
这就是互联网的运作方式。这就是我说的秘密。因为互联网提供的是一个机会均等平台。你分享的链接跟他分享的链接一样有趣，我分享的链接也不赖。只要我们有一个浏览器，不论你的财富几何，你都可以去到想浏览的页面。
the other important thing is that it costs nothing to get that contentonline now. there are so many great publishing tools that are available, it onlytakes a few minutes of your time now to actually produce something. and the costof iteration is so cheap that you might as well give it a go.
另外，从互联网获取内容不需要任何成本。如今，互联网有各种各样的发布工具，你只需要几分钟就可以成为内容的提供者。这种行为的成本非常低，你也可以试试。
and if you do, be genuine about it. be honest. be up front. and one of thegreat lessons that greenpeace actually learned was that it's okay to losecontrol. the final message that i want to share with all of you -- that you cando well online. if you want to succeed you've got to be okay to just losecontrol. thank you.
如果你真的决定试试，那么请真挚、诚实、坦率地去做。“绿色和平”在这个故事中获得的教训是，有时候失控并不一定是坏事。最后我想告诉你们的是――你可以在网络上做得很好。如果你想在网络上成功，你得经得起一点失控。谢谢。
第二篇：ted演讲稿
瞧，她笑的多开心呀，两只眼睛成了弯弯的月亮，微微的翘起的小鼻子向上耸起，红红的小嘴随着咯咯的笑声一张一合的，就连那两只小羊角辫也在抖动着。你知道她是谁吗?告诉你，那就是我。
我个儿不高，大约1米1左右。我有很多特点，最大的特点就是喜欢动物。
初冬，我在街上花钱买了两只小鸡，一只乳白色，一只橘黄色。买了它们满以为妈妈也会像我一样高兴，可一进门，妈妈就不高兴的说：“你怎么把这小东西买回来啦?他会冻死的。”我不以为然，我决心要把它们养活。我先把它们放在地上，又拿来小米喂它们，可它们只是叽叽叽地叫，不肯吃。妈妈走过来说：“天气冷，它们冻得顾不上吃了。”我仔细一看，果然，它们冻得直发抖。于是，我把它们放在手心上，它们才叽叽叽地吃起来。晚上，我在桌前写作业，小鸡在旁边并不吃我给它们的小米，总是叽叽叽地叫。每办法，只好把它们放在我的棉衣里，它们才不叫了。我安心地写完作业，把它们拿出来，它们又开始叫了，我只好跟它们“同床共枕”。
总算熬到开暖气的那一天了，房间变暖了，小鸡的羽毛也长了。晚上，我把它们放在盒子里，怕它们跑了，就在上面又蒙上了一层布。结果第二天，小鸡闷死了。我伤心的哭了，并且一连好几天都很伤心。
我曾经被赵忠祥伯伯主持的《动物世界》所感动，希望自己长大以后，为保护动物做宣传。我也曾被那些铺杀动物的不法分子所激怒，为那些无辜被害的动物流泪。有一次，我在电视上看到公安局抓获一批走私动物皮的犯罪分子，既高兴，又伤心，伤心的是有那么多的动物被他们残忍的杀害了，高兴的是公安局的叔叔终于把那一伙惨无人道的走私分之抓获了，侥幸生存的一批动物可以得到保护了。
这就是我，一个喜欢动物，爱护动物的小女孩。
第三篇：ted演讲稿永不放弃
One day ,when I was doing my homework,I found I could not able to do thefinal problem.After thinking for about ten minutes,I still had no idea,I wantedto give up,but I remembered that my teacher used to told me, “when you meetdifficults,don't be afraid and never give up,in that way you will succeedfinally.” So I continued to think of that problem,and finally，I really madeit!Through that thing,I will never give when I meet difficults in thefuture. 一天，当我正在做我的家庭作业，我发现我不会做最后一个问题。我思考了大约10分钟之后，还是没有头绪。我想放弃，但是我记起老师过去对我说过：“当你遇到问题的'时候，不要害怕也不要放弃，那样你最终就会取得成功。”所以我就继续思考那个问题，最后，我真的做出来了。通过那件事，在将来，遇到问题我也决不放弃。
第四篇：ted演讲稿2022
try something new for 30 days 小计划帮你实现大目标
a few years ago, i felt like i was stuck in a rut, so i decided to followin the footsteps of the great american philosopher, morgan spurlock, and trysomething new for 30 days. the idea is actually pretty simple. think aboutsomething you’ve always wanted to add to your life and try it for the ne_t 30days. it turns out, 30 days is just about the right amount of time to add a newhabit or subtract a habit ― like watching the news ― from your life.
几年前， 我感觉对老一套感到枯燥乏味，所以我决定追随伟大的美国哲学家摩根・斯普尔洛克的脚步，尝试做新事情30天。这个想法的确是非常简单。考虑下，你常想在你生命中做的一些事情 接下来30天尝试做这些。这就是，30天刚好是这么一段合适的时间 去养成一个新的习惯或者改掉一个习惯――例如看新闻――在你生活中。
there’s a few things i learned while doing these 30-day challenges. thefirst was, instead of the months flying by, forgotten, the time was much morememorable. this was part of a challenge i did to take a picture everyday for amonth. and i remember e_actly where i was and what i was doing that day. i alsonoticed that as i started to do more and harder 30-day challenges, myself-confidence grew. i went from desk-dwelling computer nerd to the kind of guywho bikes to work ― for fun. even last year, i ended up hiking up mt.kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in africa. i would never have been thatadventurous before i started my 30-day challenges.
当我在30天做这些挑战性事情时，我学到以下一些事。第一件事是，取代了飞逝而过易被遗忘的岁月的是这段时间非常的更加令人难忘。挑战的一部分是要一个月内每天我要去拍摄一张照片。我清楚地记得那一天我所处的位置我都在干什么。我也注意到随着我开始做更多的，更难的30天里具有挑战性的事时，我自信心也增强了。我从一个台式计算机宅男极客变成了一个爱骑自行车去工作的人――为了玩乐。甚至去年，我完成了在非洲最高山峰乞力马扎罗山的远足。在我开始这30天做挑战性的事之前我从来没有这样热爱冒险过。
i also figured out that if you really want something badly enough, you cando anything for 30 days. have you ever wanted to write a novel? every november,tens of thousands of people try to write their own 50,000 word novel fromscratch in 30 days. it turns out, all you have to do is write 1,667 words a dayfor a month. so i did. by the way, the secret is not to go to sleep until you’vewritten your words for the day. you might be sleep-deprived, but you’ll finishyour novel. now is my book the ne_t great american novel? no. i wrote it in amonth. it’s awful. but for the rest of my life, if i meet john hodgman at a tedparty, i don’t have to say, “i’m a computer scientist.” no, no, if i want to ican say, “i’m a novelist.”
我也认识到如果你真想一些槽糕透顶的事，你可以在30天里做这些事。你曾想写小说吗?每年11月，数以万计的人们在30天里，从零起点尝试写他们自己的5万字小说。这结果就是，你所要去做的事就是每天写1667个字要写一个月。所以我做到了。顺便说一下，秘密在于除非在一天里你已经写完了1667个字，要不你就甭想睡觉。你可能被剥夺睡眠，但你将会完成你的小说。那么我写的书会是下一部伟大的美国小说吗?不是的。我在一个月内写完它。它看上去太可怕了。但在我的余生，如果我在一个ted聚会上遇见约翰・霍奇曼，我不必开口说，“我是一个电脑科学家。”不，不会的，如果我愿意我可以说，“我是一个小说家。”
(laughter)
(笑声)
so here’s one last thing i’d like to mention. i learned that when i madesmall, sustainable changes, things i could keep doing, they were more likely tostick. there’s nothing wrong with big, crazy challenges. in fact, they’re a tonof fun. but they’re less likely to stick. when i gave up sugar for 30 days, day31 looked like this.
我这儿想提的最后一件事。当我做些小的、持续性的变化，我可以不断尝试做的事时，我学到我可以把它们更容易地坚持做下来。这和又大又疯狂的具有挑战性的事情无关。事实上，它们的乐趣无穷。但是，它们就不太可能坚持做下来。当我在30天里拒绝吃糖果，31天后看上去就像这样。
(laughter)
(笑声)
so here’s my question to you: what are you waiting for? i guarantee you thene_t 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not thinkabout something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the ne_t 30days.
所以我给大家提的问题是：大家还在等什么呀?我保准大家在未来的30天定会经历你喜欢或者不喜欢的事，那么为什么不考虑一些你常想做的尝试并在未来30天里试试给自己一个机会。
thanks.
谢谢。
(applause)
(掌声)
第五篇：ted演讲稿2022
春天到了，青蛙又开始“呱呱”地唱歌了，我发现又有人在田野里开始捕捉青蛙了，使青蛙成为那些人的“盘餐中”，我感到非常痛心。
青蛙是动物世界中最出色的“庄稼的保护神”。它头上那两只圆而突出的眼睛，能让它看清庄稼天敌，但捉害虫全靠它又长又宽的舌头，舌根长口腔的前面，舌尖向那么一伸，快速地伸长长的舌头，一下子把害虫粘住，然后吃掉。青蛙的背上有绿色的深色花纹，腹部是白色，能帮它逃脱天敌血盆大口。身体下面有四条腿，前腿短，后腿长。青蛙是两栖动物，不仅能在地上跳，而且也能在水里游。
青蛙吃苍蝇，蚊子，蝗虫，小飞娥等害虫，一天大约能吃掉120只，半年下来就能吃掉15000只，这是多么大的功劳哇!就连青蛙的幼虫 ------蝌蚪也能消灭许多害虫哩!真不愧“庄稼的保护神”，农民伯伯的好助手呀!
从现在开始，我们一起保护“庄稼的保护神”------ 青蛙吧!让我们共同保护[动物]生态平衡!
第六篇：ted演讲稿4篇
ted演讲稿4篇发布时间：2018-12-06s("content_top");ted演讲稿4篇
本文目录ted演讲稿TED英语演讲稿：如何让选择更容易TED英语演讲稿：我们为什么要睡觉TED英语演讲稿：无所畏惧 学无止境last year when i was here, i was speaking to you about a swim which i did across the north pole.去年，当我站在这里的时候，我在谈论我横跨 北极的游泳。
and while that swim took place three years ago, i can remember it as if it was yesterday.那还是发生在3年前， 对我则好像是昨天一般。
i remember standing on the edge of the ice, about to dive into the water, and thinking to myself, i have never ever seen any place on this earth which is just so frightening.我还记得我站在冰层的边缘， 就要扎进水里， 然后我自己想到，我再也再也 不要看到地球上的这个地方，这里是如此的让人恐惧。
the water is completely black.the water is minus 1.7 degrees centigrade, or 29 degrees fahrenheit.it's flipping freezing in that water.
那里的水是全黑色。水的温度是负1.7摄氏度， 华氏29度。那水里就是翻动的冰块。
and then a thought came across my mind: if things go pear-shaped on this swim, how long will it take for my frozen body to sink the four and a half kilometers to the bottom of the ocean?然后一个念头在我脑中划过： 如果这场泳出了点问题， 我这冰冻的身体要花多长时间 才能沉到这4500米的底部呢?
and then i said to myself, i've just got to get this thought out of my mind as quickly as possible.然后我告诫我自己，我要把这个念头尽快的 抛在我的脑后。
and the only way i can dive into that freezing cold water and swim a kilometer is by listening to my ipod and really revving myself up,能让我扎入 这冰冷的水里 然后游了4千米的唯一方法就是 听着我的ipod，让我自己全力运转起来，
listening to everything from beautiful opera all the way across to puff daddy, and then committing myself a hundred percent -- there is nothing more powerful than the made-up mind --and then walking up to the edge of the ice and just diving into the water.
我听了所有的歌，从华丽的歌剧 到吹牛老爹， 然后全身心的投入 没有什么比下定决心还要厉害的 --然后走到冰的边缘 扎入水里。
and that swim took me 18 minutes and 50 seconds, and it felt like 18 days.这次游泳花了我 18分50秒， 但好像是18天一样。
and i remember getting out of the water and my hands feeling so painful and looking down at my fingers, and my fingers were literally the size of sausages because -- you know, we're made partially of water -- when water freezes it expands, and so the cells in my fingers had frozen and expandedand burst.
我记得当我从水里出来时 我的手时如此的疼痛 然后我看着我的手指， 我的手指真的像香肠一样粗，因为--你们知道了，我们身体一部分由水组成 -- 当水结冰时会膨胀， 这样我手指的里细胞 就冷冻了，膨胀了炸裂了。and the most immediate thought when i came out of that water was the following: i'm never, ever going to do another cold water swim in my life again.我从水里上岸的一瞬间的想法 时这样的： 我一生中 再也再也不要去在冰冷的水里游泳了。
anyway, last year, i heard about the himalayas and the melting of the -- (laughter) and the melting of the glaciers because of climate change.就这样，去年，我听到了喜马拉雅山 以及那里融化的--(笑) 因为气候变化 所融化的冰川。
i heard about this lake, lake imja.我听说了这个湖泊，映佳湖。
this lake has been formed in the last couple of years because of the melting of the glacier.这个湖是几年前 由于冰川融化所形成的。
the glacier's gone all the way up the mountain and left in its place this big lake.这些冰川顺山而下 然后在这里留下了这个大湖。
and i firmly believe that what we're seeing in the himalayas is the next great, big battleground on this earth.由此我坚信 我要去看见的喜马拉雅 就是我下一个在地球上的 战场。
nearly two billion people -- so one in three people on this earth -- rely on the water from the himalayas.将近20亿的人口 -- 世界上三分之一的地球人口 -- 依靠着喜马拉雅山的水源。
and with a population increasing as quickly as it is, and with the water supply from these glaciers -- because of climate change --decreasing so much, i think we have a real risk of instability.而世界人口照这个速度发展下去， 而冰川水源的提供 -- 由于气候的变化 --下降的如此之快， 我像我们就有了一个十分不稳定的威胁。
north, you've got china; south, you've india, pakistan, bangladesh, all these countries.北方，我们由中国;南方，我们有印度，巴基斯坦，孟加拉， 和其它所有国家。
and so i decided to walk up to mt. everest, the highest mountain on this earth, and go and do a symbolic swim underneath the summit of mt. everest.这样我决定了 登上珠峰， 地球上的最高峰， 如何在珠峰下 游一次具有象征意义的泳。
now, i don't know if any of you have had the opportunity to go to mt. everest, but it's quite an ordeal getting up there.我不知道，你们是否有机会去珠峰， 但是要去那的话，是一个考验。
28 great, big, powerful yaks carrying all the equipment up onto this mountain -- i don't just have my speedo, but there's a big film crew who then send all the images around the world.28只巨大的牦牛 载着所有的仪器登上山峰 -- 我不仅仅带这我的泳裤。 还有一个摄像团队这个摄像团队，会向世界各地直播。
the other thing which was so challenging about this swim is not just the altitude.这次游泳的挑战不仅仅只有 海拔。
i wanted to do the swim at 5,300 meters above sea level.我想做的是在5300米的海平面上游泳。
so it's right up in the heavens.所以直达天堂。
it's very, very difficult to breath. you get altitude sickness.这里呼吸十分，十分困难。你会有高原反应。
i feels like you've got a man standing behind you with a hammer just hitting your head all the time.你会感到有一个人不停的那着一把锤子 在敲你的后脑勺。
that's not the worst part of it.这还不是最差的。
the worst part was this year was the year where they decided to do a big cleanup operation on mt. everest.最糟糕的是，这一年他们决定 在珠峰上做一个大扫除。
many, many people have died on mt. everest, and this was the year they decided to go and recover all the bodies of the mountaineers and then bring them down the mountain.许多人死在珠峰上， 然后今年，他们决定 收回珠峰上所有的尸体然后把他们带下山。
and when you're walking up the mountain to attempt to do something which no human has ever done before, and, in fact, no fish -- there are no fish up there swimming at 5,300 meters --而当你想上山 做一些事情 一些没有人做过的事情，事实上，鱼都没游过。 在5300米的海拔高度上，没有任何鱼在那里游过。
when you're trying to do that, and then the bodies are coming past you, it humbles you, and you also realize very, very clearly that nature is so much more powerful than we are.当你尝试着去做这些事情， 然后你看到这些尸体和你擦肩而过， 这让人不禁有些气馁， 也让你就会清晰的认识到 自然比我们要强大多了。
and we walked up this pathway, all the way up.然后我们就沿着这条路 一直走上去。
and to the right hand side of us was this great khumbu glacier.然后在我们的右手边 是巨大的昆布冰川。
and all the way along the glacier we saw these big pools of melting ice.然后，我们在沿路经过所看到的冰川的 都是一大块融化的冰块。
and then we got up to this small lake underneath the summit of mt. everest, and i prepared myself the same way as i've always prepared myself,for this swim which was going to be so very difficult.然后我们到达在珠峰下 的一个小湖这 然后我开始准备自己， 像往常一样准备自己，因为这样的游泳方式会是十分艰难的。
i put on my ipod, i listened to some music, i got myself as aggressive as possible -- but controlled aggression -- and then i hurled myself into that water.我带上我的ipod, 我听听歌， 我让我能有多激奋就多激奋-- 但是是可以控制的激奋 -- 然后我把我自己扎进水里。
i swam as quickly as i could for the first hundred meters, and then i realized very, very quickly, i had a huge problem on my hands.我尽力的游着 最起码在前一百米， 然后，我突然意识到， 我面临一个巨大的问题。
i could barely breathe.我几乎不能呼吸。i was gasping for air.我喘了一口气。i then began to choke, and then it quickly led to me vomiting in the water.然后我开始呛水了， 这导致我在水里呕吐。
and it all happened so quickly: i then -- i don't know how it happened -- but i went underwater.这一切发生的如此之快 然后 -- 我不知到是怎么发生的 -- 但是我沉入水底。
and luckily, the water was quite shallow, and i was able to push myself off the bottom of the lake and get up and then take another gasp of air.但幸运的是，水比较的浅， 我可以从湖底跳起来 然后喘另一口气。
and then i said, carry on. carry on. carry on.然后我说道，坚持，坚持，坚持。
i carried on for another five or six strokes, and then i had nothing in my body, and i went down to the bottom of the lake.我继续划了五到六下水， 然后我就筋疲力尽了， 我沉入湖底。
and i don't where i got it from, but i was able to somehow pull myself up and as quickly as possible get to the side of the lake.但是我不知从哪来的力气， 我可以就这样 把自己从湖底以最快的速度 弄到湖的岸边。
i've heard it said that drowning is the most peaceful death that you can have.我听说过溺水 是你可以死的最安详的方式。
i have never, ever heard such utter bollocks.我从来没有听过 这样的胡说八道。
(laughter) it is the most frightening and panicky feeling that you can have.(笑) 这是你们所感受过的 最恐惧，最惊慌的感觉。
i got myself to the side of the lake.我把我自己拽到湖岸。
my crew grabbed me, and then we walked as quickly as we could down -- over the rubble -- down to our camp.我的队友抓住了我， 然后我们以最快的速度 下山--在碎石中-- 到达我们的营地。
and there, we sat down, and we did a debrief about what had gone wrong there on mt. everest.在那里，我们坐下来， 然后我们做了一下在珠峰 哪里出错的报告。
and my team just gave it to me straight.然后我的队员直接告诉我。
they said, lewis, you need to have a radical tactical shift if you want to do this swim.他们说道，lewis, 你要有一个 剧烈的战术变化 如果你想完成这个游泳。
every single thing which you have learned in the past 23 years of swimming, you must forget.你必须忘掉 在23年里所学到的游泳 里所有的东西。
every single thing which you learned when you were serving in the british army, about speed and aggression, you put that to one side.以及忘掉你在英国部队里 所学习的， 关于那些速度和激奋， 你要先放在一旁。
we want you to walk up the hill in another two days' time.我们想让你花两天走上山。
take some time to rest and think about things.花点时间休息和思考。
we want you to walk up the mountain in two days' time, and instead of swimming fast, swim as slowly as possible.instead of swimming crawl, swim breaststroke.我们想让你花两天走上山。 不要游的太快， 但是慢慢的游。不用自由泳，但是用蛙泳。
and remember, never ever swim with aggression.然后记住，不要游太激奋。
this is the time to swim with real humility.是时候谦逊地 去游泳了。
and so we walked back up to the mountain two days later.所以我们又走了回去 两天后回到山峰下。
and i stood there on the edge of the lake, and i looked up at mt. everest -- and she is one of the most beautiful mountains on the earth --我站在那 在湖的边缘， 然后望向珠峰 -- 她是地球上最美丽的山峰之一 --
and i said to myself, just do this slowly.我就像这样慢慢的对我自己说道。
and i swam across the lake.然后我游过了这个湖泊。
and i can't begin to tell you how good i felt when i came to the other side.我无法告诉你们 当我到达湖的另一边时 我感觉有多好。
but i learned two very, very important lessons there on mt. everest, and i thank my team of sherpas who taught me this.但是我从珠峰学习到两个十分，十分 重要的教训。 我十分感谢我队伍中的夏尔巴告诉了我这些。
the first one is that just because something has worked in the past so well, doesn't mean it's going to work in the future.第一个就是 一个事情无论原来是怎样的， 并不代表在未来就会怎样。
and similarly, now, before i do anything, i ask myself what type of mindset do i require to successfully complete a task.相同的， 现在，在我做一件事情之前， 我问到我自己，我需要 怎样的一种态度 才能成功的完成我的任务。
and taking that into the world of climate change -- which is, frankly, the mt. everest of all problems -- just because we've lived the way we have lived for so long,just because we have consumed the way we have for so long and populated the earth the way we have for so long, doesn't mean that we can carry on the way we are carrying on.然后这样来想一想气候变化， 那是，说实话， 珠峰和其他所有的问题-- 不能因为我们已经像这样生活了这么长时间，不能因为我们已经像这样消费了那么长时间 不能因为我们像这样人口增长了这么长时间， 就意味着我们可以这样像以往一样坚持下去。
the warning signs are all there.警告信号就在那。
when i was born, the world's population was 3.5 billion people.当我出生时，世界的人口 只有35亿。
we're now 6.8 billion people, and we're expected to be 9 billion people by 2050.现在有68亿 然后我们预计在2050年有 90亿。
and then the second lesson, the radical, tactical shift.这里就有第二个教训， 剧烈的战术改变。
and i've come here to ask you today: what radical tactical shift can you take in your relationship to the environment, which will ensure我今天来到这里问你们： 你在你的环境里 能做出怎样的剧烈的战术转变 才能保证
that our children and our grandchildren live in a safe world and a secure world, and most importantly, in a sustainable world?我们的子孙 能居住在一个安全的 一个保险的世界， 最重要的是，一个可持续发展的世界?
and i ask you, please, to go away from here and think about that one radical tactical shift which you could make, which will make that big difference,然后我要求你，请你们，从这里出发 然后想象 你要做怎样的 激进的战术变化， 才能做出巨大的改变，
and then commit a hundred percent to doing it.如何下定决心去做。
blog about it, tweet about it, talk about it, and commit a hundred percent, because very, very few things are impossible to achieve if we really put our whole minds to it.些关于这些变化的博客，微博，谈论一下， 然后全身心投入。 因为如果我们 全身心投入，只有很少事情是不可能的。
so thank you very, very much.所以，十分感谢你们。
TED英语演讲稿：如何让选择更容易ted演讲稿（2） | 返回目录简介：面对商场里五花八门的商品，你的选择恐惧症又犯了吗? 美国哥伦比亚大学商学教授sheena iyengar研究如何让你在做选择时更容易。为了让你的选择省时省力，商家又会有哪些诀窍呢?
do you know how many choices you make in a typical day? do you know how many choices you make in typical week? i recently did a survey with over 2,000 americans, and the average number of choices that the typical american reports making is about 70 in a typical day. there was also recently a study done with ceos in which they followed ceos around for a whole week. and these scientists simply documented all the various tasks that these ceos engaged in and how much time they spent engaging in making decisions related to these tasks. and they found that the average ceo engaged in about 139 tasks in a week. each task was made up of many, many, many sub-choices of course. 50 percent of their decisions were made in nine minutes or less. only about 12 percent of the decisions did they make an hour or more of their time. think about your own choices. do you know how many choices make it into your nine minute category versus your one hour category? how well do you think you're doing at managing those choices?
today i want to talk about one of the biggest modern day choosing problems that we have, which is the choice overload problem. i want to talk about the problem and some potential solutions. now as i talk about this problem, i'm going to have some questions for you and i'm going to want to know your answers. so when i ask you a question, since i'm blind, only raise your hand if you want to burn off some calories. (laughter) otherwise, when i ask you a question, and if your answer is yes, i'd like you to clap your hands. so for my first question for you today: are you guys ready to hear about the choice overload problem? (applause) thank you.
so when i was a graduate student at stanford university, i used to go to this very, very upscale grocery store; at least at that time it was truly upscale. it was a store called draeger's. now this store, it was almost like going to an amusement park. they had 250 different kinds of mustards and vinegars and over 500 different kinds of fruits and vegetables and more than two dozen different kinds of bottled water -- and this was during a time when we actually used to drink tap water. i used to love going to this store, but on one occasion i asked myself, well how come you never buy anything? here's their olive oil aisle. they had over 75 different kinds of olive oil, including those that were in a locked case that came from thousand-year-old olive trees.
so i one day decided to pay a visit to the manager, and i asked the manager, "is this model of offering people all this choice really working?" and he pointed to the busloads of tourists that would show up everyday, with cameras ready usually. we decided to do a little experiment, and we picked jam for our experiment. here's their jam aisle. they had 348 different kinds of jam. we set up a little tasting booth right near the entrance of the store. we there put out six different flavors of jam or 24 different flavors of jam, and we looked at two things: first, in which case were people more likely to stop, sample some jam? more people stopped when there were 24, about 60 percent, than when there were six, about 40 percent. the next thing we looked at is in which case were people more likely to buy a jar of jam. now we see the opposite effect. of the people who stopped when there were 24, only three percent of them actually bought a jar of jam. of the people who stopped when there were six, well now we saw that 30 percent of them actually bought a jar of jam. now if you do the math, people were at least six times more likely to buy a jar of jam if they encountered six than if they encountered 24.
now choosing not to buy a jar of jam is probably good for us -- at least it's good for our waistlines -- but it turns out that this choice overload problem affects us even in very consequential decisions. we choose not to choose, even when it goes against our best self-interests. so now for the topic of today: financial savings. now i'm going to describe to you a study i did with gur huberman, emir kamenica, wei jang where we looked at the retirement savings decisions of nearly a million americans from about 650 plans all in the u.s. and what we looked at was whether the number of fund offerings available in a retirement savings plan, the 401(k) plan, does that affect people's likelihood to save more for tomorrow. and what we found was that indeed there was a correlation. so in these plans, we had about 657 plans that ranged from offering people anywhere from two to 59 different fund offerings. and what we found was that, the more funds offered, indeed, there was less participation rate.
so if you look at the extremes, those plans that offered you two funds, participation rates were around in the mid-70s -- still not as high as we want it to be. in those plans that offered nearly 60 funds, participation rates have now dropped to about the 60th percentile. now it turns out that even if you do choose to participate when there are more choices present, even then, it has negative consequences. so for those people who did choose to participate, the more choices available, the more likely people were to completely avoid stocks or equity funds. the more choices available, the more likely they were to put all their money in pure money market accounts. now neither of these extreme decisions are the kinds of decisions that any of us would recommend for people when you're considering their future financial well-being.
well, over the past decade, we have observed three main negative consequences to offering people more and more choices. they're more likely to delay choosing -- procrastinate even when it goes against their best self-interest. they're more likely to make worse choices -- worse financial choices, medical choices. they're more likely to choose things that make them less satisfied, even when they do objectively better. the main reason for this is because, we might enjoy gazing at those giant walls of mayonnaises, mustards, vinegars, jams, but we can't actually do the math of comparing and contrasting and actually picking from that stunning display. so what i want to propose to you today are four simple techniques -- techniques that we have tested in one way or another in different research venues -- that you can easily apply in your businesses.
the first: cut. you've heard it said before, but it's never been more true than today, that less is more. people are always upset when i say, "cut." they're always worried they're going to lose shelf space. but in fact, what we're seeing more and more is that if you are willing to cut, get rid of those extraneous redundant options, well there's an increase in sales, there's a lowering of costs, there is an improvement of the choosing experience. when proctor & gamble went from 26 different kinds of head & shoulders to 15, they saw an increase in sales by 10 percent. when the golden cat corporation got rid of their 10 worst-selling cat litter products, they saw an increase in profits by 87 percent -- a function of both increase in sales and lowering of costs. you know, the average grocery store today offers you 45,000 products. the typical walmart today offers you 100,000 products. but the ninth largest retailer, the ninth biggest retailer in the world today is aldi, and it offers you only 1,400 products -- one kind of canned tomato sauce.
now in the financial savings world, i think one of the best examples that has recently come out on how to best manage the choice offerings has actually been something that david laibson was heavily involved in designing, which was the program that they have at harvard. every single harvard employee is now automatically enrolled in a lifecycle fund. for those people who actually want to choose, they're given 20 funds, not 300 or more funds. you know, often, people say, "i don't know how to cut. they're all important choices." and the first thing i do is i ask the employees, "tell me how these choices are different from one another. and if your employees can't tell them apart, neither can your consumers."
now before we started our session this afternoon, i had a chat with gary. and gary said that he would be willing to offer people in this audience an all-expenses-paid free vacation to the most beautiful road in the world. here's a description of the road. and i'd like you to read it. and now i'll give you a few seconds to read it and then i want you to clap your hands if you're ready to take gary up on his offer. (light clapping) okay. anybody who's ready to take him up on his offer. is that all? all right, let me show you some more about this. (laughter) you guys knew there was a trick, didn't you. (honk) now who's ready to go on this trip. (applause) (laughter) i think i might have actually heard more hands.
all right. now in fact, you had objectively more information the first time around than the second time around, but i would venture to guess that you felt that it was more real the second time around. because the pictures made it feel more real to you. which brings me to the second technique for handling the choice overload problem, which is concretization. that in order for people to understand the differences between the choices, they have to be able to understand the consequences associated with each choice, and that the consequences need to be felt in a vivid sort of way, in a very concrete way. why do people spend an average of 15 to 30 percent more when they use an atm card or a credit card as opposed to cash? because it doesn't feel like real money. and it turns out that making it feel more concrete can actually be a very positive tool to use in getting people to save more.
so a study that i did with shlomo benartzi and alessandro previtero, we did a study with people at ing -- employees that are all working at ing -- and now these people were all in a session where they're doing enrollment for their 401(k) plan. and during that session, we kept the session exactly the way it used to be, but we added one little thing. the one little thing we added was we asked people to just think about all the positive things that would happen in your life if you saved more. by doing that simple thing, there was an increase in enrollment by 20 percent and there was an increase in the amount of people willing to save or the amount that they were willing to put down into their savings account by four percent.
the third technique: categorization. we can handle more categories than we can handle choices. so for example, here's a study we did in a magazine aisle. it turns out that in wegmans grocery stores up and down the northeast corridor, the magazine aisles range anywhere from 331 different kinds of magazines all the way up to 664. but you know what? if i show you 600 magazines and i divide them up into 10 categories, versus i show you 400 magazines and divide them up into 20 categories, you believe that i have given you more choice and a better choosing experience if i gave you the 400 than if i gave you the 600. because the categories tell me how to tell them apart.
here are two different jewelry displays. one is called "jazz" and the other one is called "swing." if you think the display on the left is swing and the display on the right is jazz, clap your hands. (light clapping) okay, there's some. if you think the one on the left is jazz and the one on the right is swing, clap your hands. okay, a bit more. now it turns out you're right. the one on the left is jazz and the one on the right is swing, but you know what? this is a highly useless categorization scheme. (laughter) the categories need to say something to the chooser, not the choice-maker. and you often see that problem when it comes down to those long lists of all these funds. who are they actually supposed to be informing?
my fourth technique: condition for complexity. it turns out we can actually handle a lot more information than we think we can, we've just got to take it a little easier. we have to gradually increase the complexity. i'm going to show you one example of what i'm talking about. let's take a very, very complicated decision: buying a car. here's a german car manufacturer that gives you the opportunity to completely custom make your car. you've got to make 60 different decisions, completely make up your car. now these decisions vary in the number of choices that they offer per decision. car colors, exterior car colors -- i've got 56 choices. engines, gearshift -- four choices. so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to vary the order in which these decisions appear. so half of the customers are going to go from high choice, 56 car colors, to low choice, four gearshifts. the other half of the customers are going to go from low choice, four gearshifts, to 56 car colors, high choice.
what am i going to look at? how engaged you are. if you keep hitting the default button per decision, that means you're getting overwhelmed, that means i'm losing you. what you find is the people who go from high choice to low choice, they're hitting that default button over and over and over again. we're losing them. they go from low choice to high choice, they're hanging in there. it's the same information. it's the same number of choices. the only thing that i have done is i have varied the order in which that information is presented. if i start you off easy, i learn how to choose. even though choosing gearshift doesn't tell me anything about my preferences for interior decor, it still prepares me for how to choose. it also gets me excited about this big product that i'm putting together, so i'm more willing to be motivated to be engaged.
so let me recap. i have talked about four techniques for mitigating the problem of choice overload -- cut -- get rid of the extraneous alternatives; concretize -- make it real; categorize -- we can handle more categories, less choices; condition for complexity. all of these techniques that i'm describing to you today are designed to help you manage your choices -- better for you, you can use them on yourself, better for the people that you are serving. because i believe that the key to getting the most from choice is to be choosy about choosing. and the more we're able to be choosy about choosing the better we will be able to practice the art of choosing.
thank you very much.
(applause)
TED英语演讲稿：我们为什么要睡觉ted演讲稿（3） | 返回目录简介：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 u.s., 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 pro