Thursday 13th  October 2022  11.am – 12pm  at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Baillie Gifford Stage, Town Hall, Cheltenham

We live in an era of breath-taking scientific discovery, but also fake news, conspiracy theories and post-truth rhetoric. Why do we act irrationally or succumb to bad arguments? Rejecting the cynical view that we’re saddled with biases, fallacies and illusions, world-renowned psychologist Steven Pinker (Rationality) examines how we can harness rational thinking to help us see the world more clearly. He will be in discussion with Claudia Hammond.

Book tickets for the event here

Some of us seem to have an over-inflated belief in our abilities. Why are we resistant to the idea we might not be good at something?

Read the article here

Sunday 10th  July 2022  12.pm – 1pm  at the ALSO FESTIVAL Park Farm, Compton Verney, Warwick CV35 9HJ

From Wordle, quordle, octordle, semantle to Lordle (the Lord of the Rings Version – no really) word games seem to have caught our imagination in 2022. So much so that award-winning author and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s ‘All in the Mind’ Claudia Hammond and neuroscientist and academic Prof Catherine Loveday will be setting up in the woods to explain how and why the brain enjoys these challenges so much and advise on how you can ace them. We hear there will be solving these word games LIVE.

Saturday 9th July 3.pm – 4pm  at the ALSO FESTIVAL Park Farm, Compton Verney, Warwick CV35 9HJ

Claudia Hammond is an award-winning broadcaster, author and psychology lecturer. In her work, she shares the ways that psychological and medical research can help us in our everyday lives, whether through her radio show ‘All in the Mind’, TV, podcasts, public events or books. She first started presenting about matters of the brain aged 14, she won our Transmission Prize for the Communication of Ideas in our very first year. So we thought it was time to ‘do’ Claudia’s Greatest Hits. We’ll be asking her what we need to know about the psychology of rest, money, time perception and emotions. Don’t miss it!

The Anatomy of Kindness: Results.

Weds 2 March 7:00pm – 8:30pm, BBC Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA

The Anatomy of Kindness is BBC Radio 4’s latest scientific study. More than 60,000 people took part in The Kindness Test – examining public attitudes to this important topic, in a partnership between the BBC and the University of Sussex. This event will announce the results. Claudia will be joined by Professor Robin Bannerjee, medical ethicist Deborah Bowman plus three other guests to reveal the results and unpick what they mean in today’s uncertain world.

Antimicrobial Resistance

Tues 22 Feb 7:00pm – 8:20pm, Reading Room, Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London.

Claudia and guests Professor Dame Sally Davies and Ross McFarlane will discuss one of the biggest public health challenges of our time: antimicrobial resistance. What can we do as disease-causing bacteria and viruses stop responding to treatment and drug-resistant infections increase?

The event will be recorded live with an audience and edited into a programme to be broadcast on the BBC World Service.

Under Pressure: The Science Of Courage

Fri 11 Jun 5:00pm – 5:55pm, Pillar Room, Town Hall, Cheltenham

How would you react under extreme pressure? For some, courage comes naturally in stressful situations; for others, the ability to keep a cool head can seem almost impossible. Considering everything from public speaking to emergency situations, Claudia is joined by psychologists Rachel Manning and Patrick Tissington and mental health campaigner and adventurer Alex Staniforth to discuss the qualities of courage, heroism and bravery and to explore whether we can train ourselves to process fear more successfully when everyday life puts us under pressure.

Thursday 27 May at 17.30 – Anatomies of Touch

Claudia will be taking part in an online discussion of the Anatomies of Touch with a specially invited panel that also includes  hand surgeon James Hopkinson-Woolley, and artist Jane Dixon. The event will be chaired by Suzanne Reynolds and Elenor Ling, co-curators of a new exhibition on touch  The Human Touch, open 18 May-1 August. Tickets for the event here 

What is rest? How do we rest best? Why is there ‘no rest for the wicked’? What is not rest? Why do we need rest? Is rest best? Do we really rest when we sleep? What’s the difference? Much of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different. Rest is how we unwind, calm our minds, and recharge our bodies.  Claudia Hammond reveals how we get real rest and how it is directly linked to our sense of wellbeing. Counting down through the top ten most restful activities, Claudia explains precisely why rest matters; looks at the science that shows what really works; and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life. This event will take place at 6pm on Sunday 9th May. More information here

In ‘The art and neuroscience of rest’ Claudia Hammond will examine why rest matters, why the brain needs rest as well as sleep and how we can find more rest in our lives.  Register free here 

The Art of Rest is published in Germany by Dumont as Die Kunst des Ausruhens

This is the latest foreign translation of The Art of Rest – in all the book has been translated into 17 languages, with some lovely covers.

Drawing on her book Time Warped published in 2012, Claudia joined presenters Adam Rutherford and Hannah Fry to explain how emotion and memory are big factors in how time is perceived,  stressing how time can stretch and squeeze depending on whether you are looking backwards or forwards, and revealing how lockdowns because of the Covid pandemic have warped time in different ways for different people.

Listen back to the programme here

Using results from The Rest Test – the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken – Claudia will explain why rest matters, examine the science behind the results to establish what really works and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life.

This on-line event will take place between 7pm and 8.30pm

You can register for this event here

Claudia Hammond will join Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson and philosopher Mark Vernon for a chat about rest.

This event is free for Idler subscribers.

It is an online event. Find more here

Claudia  will be looking at the art of rest in a pandemic, speaking about how we can unwind and recharge our bodies for a more restful and balanced life.

This on-line event will start at 11.30am

Find more information and tickets here

Claudia Hammond will be co-curating Tent 3 – Thinking Kindness with Professor Robin Bannerjee who runs Sussex University’s Kindness Research.

The event will focus on kindness-focused research.

• What do we know about kindness?

• How does kindness work?

• What is the relationship between health and kindness?

• How does kindness affect us and those around us?

• How can we build kinder communities?

Find more information and tickets here 

Waterstones describe The Art of Rest as “sure to restore the equilibrium.Drawing on a ground-breaking global study of rest, as distinct from sleep, Hammond’s practical and inspiring book unravels the transformative benefits of quality downtime and the secrets of how to unwind.”

The Art of Rest is one of just four books chosen as a prestigious ‘book of the month’ – the other categories are fiction, thriller and children’s book – by the leading UK booksellers.

Find out more and buy a copy of the book here 

In this event. as part of the British Academy’s  SHAPE  series, Claudia Hammond  joined Dorothy Bishop, Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at Oxford University, to discuss her life, career and latest book The Art of Rest 

SHAPE (Social sciences, humanities & the arts for people and the economy) is a new collective name for those subjects that help us understand ourselves, others and the human world around us. 

You can watch a video recording of this online event here 

Claudia spoke about her latest book The Art of Rest and discussed the role of music in helping us to rest at two talks at this year’s Also Festival. The festival, in the Warwickshire countryside, was one of very few live events that took place during the summer of 2020 and it was featured in a special article in the Guardian  

To some, our days in lockdown seem to be slipping past faster than usual. But why?

Read Claudia’s article here

Claudia Hammond spoke to an audience in London on on how to find more rest in a frantic world. The event was filmed at an Action for Happiness event in London on 25 Feb 2020

You can watch the video here

Claudia joined Rangan Chatterjee to argue that being busy isn’t a badge of honour – and taking time out is definitely not lazy.  She examines the science behind our struggles to relax and she shares some insights on our attitudes to downtime, the top 10 activities most likely to help us switch off, and what the benefits are for our health, well-being and productivity.

If you need a reminder of why rest is so important – and permission to do it, without feeling guilty – this is it. So put your feet up (or head out for a walk, if you find that more restful), and listen in.

Listen here 

Most of us tend to think of time as linear, absolute and constantly “running out” – but is that really true? And how can we change our perceptions to feel better about its passing?