Experts to address health benefits of sleep in free community talk, clinical workshop

For people with doubts about the benefits of sleep, experts from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of California Berkeley aim to put those to rest.

The public is invited to the free community talk, “Cultivating Nourishing Sleep,” from 6-8 p.m. Monday, July 28, in the Wolf Law Building, Room 204, at CU-Boulder.

The conversation will include brief presentations by sleep experts Allison Harvey, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, and Monique LeBourgeois and Kenneth Wright, CU-Boulder professors of integrative physiology. Each professor will share scientific research on healthy sleep across lifecycles.

The researchers will address sleep for infants and toddlers; sleep during adolescence, adulthood and aging; and proven strategies for cultivating and sustaining healthy sleep patterns and resources for attaining help when needed.

After the presentation, Sona Dimidjian, CU-Boulder associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, will moderate a question-and-answer session and community experts are invited to share local resources for supporting healthy sleep.

“Scientific research has yielded important knowledge about the nature of sleep, the causes of problems with sleep and effective treatments for problems with sleep,” Dimidjian said. “We are fortunate to have three leading experts join us for a community conversation addressing healthy sleep.”

The event is free but registration at http://www.regonline.com/sleeptalk2014 is encouraged.

Before the community talk, Harvey will lead an in-depth workshop and training for clinicians and students interested in enhancing their clinical practice with research-supported, cognitive behavioral approaches for treating sleep disturbances.

The workshop, “Effectively Treating Sleep Problems: Basics and Beyond,” will be from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the University Memorial Center. The workshop registration fee is $135 for professionals and $95 for students, and continuing education credits are available. Register at http://www.regonline.com/sleeptraining2014. Students should email crest@colorado.edu for the discount code.

Both events are part of a lecture series organized and moderated by Dimidjian and funded by a grant from the CU-Boulder Outreach Committee.

For more information about the talk, workshop or other upcoming events, email crest@colorado.edu or call 303-492-7378.