For many people, sleep is a burden which they would love to do away with
I mean, imagine how much more you could do in a day
with 2 extra hours.
But, what would actually happen if you cut out
2 hours of your sleep every night? First,
we need to understand how much sleep our body and brain actually need.
The vast majority of research on the topic
has concluded that around 8 hrs of sleep is optimal
for the average person. Today, almost
50% of people get 6 hrs or less each night.
Now, the first night of less sleep may actually
trigger the mesolimbic system, releasing dopamine
and giving you a sense of adrenaline. But your brain slowly
begins to shut off the areas associated with planning and
making decisions, and, even though you may still feel fine
getting 6 hrs, the truth is actaully much darker
and worrisome that you might realize.
Scientists use a technique known as PVT
to understand the impact
of sleep deprivation on humans in studies
Simply put, it's a reaction test. A red button
randomly turns green and people have to push it
as fast as possible. Not so surprisingly,
those who get 8 hrs of sleep over a 2 week
period, show very few lapses in attention and
no cognitive decline. But those groups that recieved
either 6 or 4 hrs of sleep see
declining PVT results on almost a daily basis
for the entire 2 week period.
Of course the 4 hrs group performs the worst
but these results don't just show a loss of concentration,
they show full lapses in awareness called microsleeps.
In other words, their brains aren't just slower, but
shutting off for moments at a time. When looking at the results
deeper, scientists concluded that getting 6 hrs of sleep
for 10 days in a row was the same as not sleeping
for 24 hrs straight. That's
the same cognitive decline as being legally drunk.
And, if you get 4 hrs of sleep for 11 days,
it's like you haven't slept for 48 hrs straight.
These studies also show that participants were not at all
aware of their cognitive declines. In other words,
when you're tired, it's like being that drunk person
at a party who insists that they can drive home fine.
Other tests show that your ability to memorize
and retain information, or even do simple math or
problem solving, decline at similar rates.
But perhaps the scariest fact is that even after
one night of 4-5 hrs of sleep,
your natural killer cells, which stop cancer cells
from proliferating in your body drop by 70%
You're also more likely to catch a cold because
your immune system is weakened, which is why when we're sick
we feel compelled to sleep so much. Chronic lack of
sleep is also linked to bowel, prostate and breast cancer
and people over 45 who sleep under 6 hrs
a night are also 200% more likely to
have a heart attack or a stroke. Even the WHO
classified any form of nighttime shiftwork
as a probable carcinogen. So, even though you may swear
that cutting 2 hrs of sleep makes you so much more productive
and that you don't feel any worse, just remember
that every single day your cognitive abilities continue to
decrease, costing you much more that you may have bargained for.
Be sure to check out our latest video, where we challenged
ourselves to wear every single piece of plastic
we used for 7 days while living our normal life
in public, which was insanely embarassing.
We really wanna make more content that can affect people's lives and the planet
and this one has a ton of cool science in it bus wasn't seen
by that many people, so we really appreciate you checking it out.
And if you wanna learn more about sleep and pushing yourself
our latest podcast is about Hustle Culture
and touches on a variety of studies related to stress, sleep
and how much you should be working to optimize results.
We'll leave links in the description. Otherwise, be sure to subscribe for more
and we'll see you next time for another video.