WEBVTT 00:00:00.845 --> 00:00:02.350 Thank you very much. 00:00:02.374 --> 00:00:06.373 Well, I would like to start with testicles. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:06.683 --> 00:00:08.293 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:09.198 --> 00:00:11.952 Men who sleep five hours a night 00:00:11.976 --> 00:00:17.229 have significantly smaller testicles than those who sleep seven hours or more. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:17.253 --> 00:00:20.054 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:20.078 --> 00:00:25.157 In addition, men who routinely sleep just four to five hours a night 00:00:25.181 --> 00:00:27.697 will have a level of testosterone 00:00:27.721 --> 00:00:31.054 which is that of someone 10 years their senior. 00:00:33.083 --> 00:00:36.844 So a lack of sleep will age a man by a decade 00:00:36.868 --> 00:00:39.653 in terms of that critical aspect of wellness. 00:00:41.939 --> 00:00:46.363 And we see equivalent impairments in female reproductive health 00:00:46.387 --> 00:00:47.804 caused by a lack of sleep. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:51.086 --> 00:00:53.737 This is the best news that I have for you today. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:53.761 --> 00:00:56.437 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:56.461 --> 00:00:58.838 From this point, it may only get worse. 00:00:58.862 --> 00:01:01.642 Not only will I tell you about the wonderfully good things 00:01:01.666 --> 00:01:03.501 that happen when you get sleep, 00:01:03.525 --> 00:01:08.006 but the alarmingly bad things that happen when you don't get enough, 00:01:08.030 --> 00:01:10.561 both for your brain and for your body. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:11.394 --> 00:01:13.808 Let me start with the brain 00:01:13.832 --> 00:01:16.837 and the functions of learning and memory, 00:01:16.861 --> 00:01:20.130 because what we've discovered over the past 10 or so years 00:01:20.154 --> 00:01:23.051 is that you need sleep after learning 00:01:23.075 --> 00:01:26.362 to essentially hit the save button on those new memories 00:01:26.386 --> 00:01:27.686 so that you don't forget. 00:01:28.948 --> 00:01:34.464 But recently, we discovered that you also need sleep before learning, 00:01:34.488 --> 00:01:37.559 and now to actually prepare your brain, 00:01:37.583 --> 00:01:39.639 almost like a dry sponge 00:01:39.663 --> 00:01:42.106 ready to initially soak up new information. 00:01:43.167 --> 00:01:46.279 And without sleep, the memory circuits of the brain 00:01:46.303 --> 00:01:49.074 essentially become waterlogged, as it were, 00:01:49.098 --> 00:01:51.255 and you can't absorb new memories. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:52.179 --> 00:01:54.068 So let me show you the data. 00:01:54.092 --> 00:01:58.345 Here in this study, we decided to test the hypothesis 00:01:58.369 --> 00:02:00.917 that pulling the all-nighter was a good idea. 00:02:02.244 --> 00:02:04.603 So we took a group of individuals 00:02:04.627 --> 00:02:08.174 and we assigned them to one of two experimental groups: 00:02:08.198 --> 00:02:11.655 a sleep group and a sleep deprivation group. 00:02:11.679 --> 00:02:16.299 Now the sleep group, they're going to get a full eight hours of slumber, 00:02:16.323 --> 00:02:18.991 but the deprivation group, we're going to keep them awake 00:02:19.015 --> 00:02:21.165 in the laboratory, under full supervision. 00:02:21.658 --> 00:02:26.038 There's no naps or caffeine, by the way, so it's miserable for everyone involved. 00:02:26.586 --> 00:02:28.115 And then the next day, 00:02:28.139 --> 00:02:32.439 we're going to place those participants inside an MRI scanner 00:02:32.463 --> 00:02:36.249 and we're going to have them try and learn a whole list of new facts 00:02:36.273 --> 00:02:39.572 as we're taking snapshots of brain activity, 00:02:39.596 --> 00:02:41.575 and then we're going to test them 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:44.083 to see how effective that learning has been. 00:02:44.948 --> 00:02:47.884 And that's what you're looking at here on the vertical axis. 00:02:48.515 --> 00:02:51.195 And when you put those two groups head to head, 00:02:51.219 --> 00:02:56.258 what you find is a quite significant 40-percent deficit 00:02:56.282 --> 00:02:59.758 in the ability of the brain to make new memories without sleep. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:01.044 --> 00:03:02.894 I think this should be concerning, 00:03:02.918 --> 00:03:05.140 considering what we know is happening to sleep 00:03:05.164 --> 00:03:07.583 in our education populations right now. 00:03:08.538 --> 00:03:10.357 In fact, to put that in context, 00:03:10.381 --> 00:03:13.878 it would be the difference in a child acing an exam 00:03:13.902 --> 00:03:16.802 versus failing it miserably -- 40 percent. 00:03:18.294 --> 00:03:22.490 And we've gone on to discover what goes wrong within your brain 00:03:22.514 --> 00:03:25.635 to produce these types of learning disabilities. 00:03:26.759 --> 00:03:28.333 And there's a structure that sits 00:03:28.357 --> 00:03:32.989 on the left and the right side of your brain, called the hippocampus. 00:03:33.013 --> 00:03:34.798 And you can think of the hippocampus 00:03:34.822 --> 00:03:38.059 almost like the informational inbox of your brain. 00:03:38.634 --> 00:03:41.825 It's very good at receiving new memory files 00:03:41.849 --> 00:03:43.324 and then holding on to them. 00:03:44.931 --> 00:03:46.642 And when you look at this structure 00:03:46.666 --> 00:03:49.728 in those people who'd had a full night of sleep, 00:03:49.752 --> 00:03:53.277 we saw lots of healthy learning-related activity. 00:03:54.644 --> 00:03:57.603 Yet in those people who were sleep-deprived, 00:03:57.627 --> 00:04:01.253 we actually couldn't find any significant signal whatsoever. 00:04:02.732 --> 00:04:07.713 So it's almost as though sleep deprivation had shut down your memory inbox 00:04:07.737 --> 00:04:10.713 and any new incoming files, they were just being bounced. 00:04:11.898 --> 00:04:15.506 You couldn't effectively commit new experiences to memory. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:18.062 --> 00:04:22.561 So that's the bad that can happen if I were to take sleep away from you, 00:04:22.585 --> 00:04:25.657 but let me just come back to that control group for a second. 00:04:26.444 --> 00:04:29.776 Do you remember those folks that got a full eight hours of sleep? 00:04:30.418 --> 00:04:32.894 Well, we can ask a very different question: 00:04:32.918 --> 00:04:36.522 what is it about the physiological quality of your sleep 00:04:36.546 --> 00:04:38.093 when you do get it 00:04:38.117 --> 00:04:41.929 that restores and enhances your memory and learning ability 00:04:41.953 --> 00:04:43.103 each and every day? 00:04:44.004 --> 00:04:46.986 And by placing electrodes all over the head, 00:04:47.010 --> 00:04:51.057 what we've discovered is that there are big powerful brainwaves 00:04:51.081 --> 00:04:54.700 that happen during the very deepest stages of sleep 00:04:54.724 --> 00:04:57.009 that have riding on top of them 00:04:57.033 --> 00:05:00.307 these spectacular bursts of electrical activity 00:05:00.331 --> 00:05:02.065 that we call sleep spindles. 00:05:03.066 --> 00:05:07.488 And it's the combined quality of these deep-sleep brainwaves 00:05:07.512 --> 00:05:11.973 that acts like a file-transfer mechanism at night, 00:05:11.997 --> 00:05:16.068 shifting memories from a short-term vulnerable reservoir 00:05:16.092 --> 00:05:20.434 to a more permanent long-term storage site within the brain, 00:05:20.458 --> 00:05:23.848 and therefore protecting them, making them safe. 00:05:25.467 --> 00:05:27.506 And it is important that we understand 00:05:27.530 --> 00:05:32.589 what during sleep actually transacts these memory benefits, 00:05:32.613 --> 00:05:36.747 because there are real medical and societal implications. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:36.771 --> 00:05:38.788 And let me just tell you about one area 00:05:38.812 --> 00:05:42.248 that we've moved this work out into, clinically, 00:05:42.272 --> 00:05:45.485 which is the context of aging and dementia. 00:05:46.870 --> 00:05:50.295 Because it's of course no secret that, as we get older, 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:53.604 our learning and memory abilities begin to fade and decline. 00:05:55.051 --> 00:05:56.669 But what we've also discovered 00:05:56.693 --> 00:06:03.478 is that a physiological signature of aging is that your sleep gets worse, 00:06:03.502 --> 00:06:07.306 especially that deep quality of sleep that I was just discussing. 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:11.734 And only last year, we finally published evidence 00:06:11.758 --> 00:06:14.717 that these two things, they're not simply co-occurring, 00:06:14.741 --> 00:06:17.559 they are significantly interrelated. 00:06:18.837 --> 00:06:22.124 And it suggests that the disruption of deep sleep 00:06:22.148 --> 00:06:24.442 is an underappreciated factor 00:06:24.466 --> 00:06:28.379 that is contributing to cognitive decline or memory decline 00:06:28.403 --> 00:06:31.981 in aging, and most recently we've discovered, 00:06:32.005 --> 00:06:34.227 in Alzheimer's disease as well. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:36.329 --> 00:06:40.068 Now, I know this is remarkably depressing news. 00:06:40.092 --> 00:06:42.395 It's in the mail. It's coming at you. 00:06:42.419 --> 00:06:44.704 But there's a potential silver lining here. 00:06:45.760 --> 00:06:50.618 Unlikely many of the other factors that we know are associated with aging, 00:06:50.642 --> 00:06:54.301 for example changes in the physical structure of the brain, 00:06:54.325 --> 00:06:57.387 that's fiendishly difficult to treat, 00:06:57.411 --> 00:07:01.967 but that sleep is a missing piece in the explanatory puzzle 00:07:01.991 --> 00:07:04.586 of aging and Alzheimer's is exciting 00:07:04.610 --> 00:07:07.348 because we may be able to do something about it. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:08.530 --> 00:07:12.461 And one way that we are approaching this at my sleep center 00:07:12.485 --> 00:07:15.493 is not by using sleeping pills, by the way. 00:07:15.517 --> 00:07:20.446 Unfortunately, they are blunt instruments that do not produce naturalistic sleep. 00:07:21.532 --> 00:07:24.779 Instead, we're actually developing a method based on this. 00:07:24.803 --> 00:07:28.018 It's called direct current brain stimulation. 00:07:28.042 --> 00:07:31.323 You insert a small amount of voltage into the brain, 00:07:31.347 --> 00:07:33.585 so small you typically don't feel it, 00:07:33.609 --> 00:07:35.501 but it has a measurable impact. 00:07:36.826 --> 00:07:43.167 Now if you apply this stimulation during sleep in young, healthy adults, 00:07:43.191 --> 00:07:47.906 as if you're sort of singing in time with those deep-sleep brainwaves, 00:07:47.930 --> 00:07:52.472 not only can you amplify the size of those deep-sleep brainwaves, 00:07:52.496 --> 00:07:57.040 but in doing so, we can almost double the amount of memory benefit 00:07:57.064 --> 00:07:59.098 that you get from sleep. 00:07:59.122 --> 00:08:01.937 The question now is whether we can translate 00:08:01.961 --> 00:08:06.262 the same affordable, potentially portable piece of technology 00:08:06.286 --> 00:08:09.167 into older adults and those with dementia. 00:08:10.726 --> 00:08:15.312 Can we restore back some healthy quality of deep sleep, 00:08:15.336 --> 00:08:19.955 and in doing so, can we salvage aspects of their learning 00:08:19.979 --> 00:08:21.463 and memory function? 00:08:21.487 --> 00:08:23.653 That is my real hope now. 00:08:24.378 --> 00:08:27.383 That's one of our moon-shot goals, as it were. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:29.335 --> 00:08:32.693 So that's an example of sleep for your brain, 00:08:32.717 --> 00:08:35.930 but sleep is just as essential for your body. 00:08:37.276 --> 00:08:40.951 We've already spoken about sleep loss and your reproductive system. 00:08:41.863 --> 00:08:46.725 Or I could tell you about sleep loss and your cardiovascular system, 00:08:46.749 --> 00:08:49.923 and that all it takes is one hour, 00:08:49.947 --> 00:08:55.455 because there is a global experiment performed on 1.6 billion people 00:08:55.479 --> 00:08:59.756 across 70 countries twice a year, 00:08:59.780 --> 00:09:01.669 and it's called daylight saving time. 00:09:02.907 --> 00:09:06.365 Now, in the spring, when we lose one hour of sleep, 00:09:06.389 --> 00:09:12.008 we see a subsequent 24-percent increase in heart attacks that following day. 00:09:14.952 --> 00:09:18.127 In the autumn, when we gain an hour of sleep, 00:09:18.151 --> 00:09:22.019 we see a 21-percent reduction in heart attacks. 00:09:23.752 --> 00:09:25.432 Isn't that incredible? 00:09:26.929 --> 00:09:32.605 And you see exactly the same profile for car crashes, road traffic accidents, 00:09:32.629 --> 00:09:34.531 even suicide rates. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:36.928 --> 00:09:39.833 But as a deeper dive, I want to focus on this: 00:09:39.857 --> 00:09:42.348 sleep loss and your immune system. 00:09:43.149 --> 00:09:47.991 And here, I'll introduce these delightful blue elements in the image. 00:09:48.015 --> 00:09:51.193 They are called natural killer cells, 00:09:51.217 --> 00:09:56.067 and you can think of natural killer cells almost like the secret service agents 00:09:56.091 --> 00:09:57.702 of your immune system. 00:09:57.726 --> 00:10:02.709 And they are very good at identifying dangerous, unwanted elements 00:10:02.733 --> 00:10:04.130 and eliminating them. 00:10:05.253 --> 00:10:09.197 In fact, what they're doing here is destroying a cancerous tumor mass. 00:10:10.586 --> 00:10:16.522 So what you wish for is a virile set of these immune assassins 00:10:16.546 --> 00:10:18.602 at all times, 00:10:18.626 --> 00:10:22.436 and tragically, that's what you don't have if you're not sleeping enough. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:23.825 --> 00:10:25.469 So here in this experiment, 00:10:25.493 --> 00:10:29.322 you're not going to have your sleep deprived for an entire night, 00:10:29.346 --> 00:10:32.857 you're simply going to have your sleep restricted to four hours 00:10:32.881 --> 00:10:34.659 for one single night, 00:10:34.683 --> 00:10:37.684 and then we're going to look to see what's the percent reduction 00:10:37.708 --> 00:10:39.698 in immune cell activity that you suffer. 00:10:40.774 --> 00:10:43.603 And it's not small -- it's not 10 percent, 00:10:43.627 --> 00:10:45.630 it's not 20 percent. 00:10:45.654 --> 00:10:50.226 It was a 70-percent drop in natural killer cell activity. 00:10:51.786 --> 00:10:55.841 That's a concerning state of immune deficiency, 00:10:57.358 --> 00:11:00.175 and you can perhaps understand why we're now finding 00:11:00.199 --> 00:11:04.055 significant links between short sleep duration 00:11:04.079 --> 00:11:07.992 and your risk for the development of numerous forms of cancer. 00:11:09.892 --> 00:11:12.675 Currently, that list includes cancer of the bowel, 00:11:12.699 --> 00:11:15.961 cancer of the prostate, and cancer of the breast. 00:11:17.853 --> 00:11:23.209 In fact, the link between a lack of sleep and cancer is now so strong 00:11:23.233 --> 00:11:25.615 that the World Health Organization 00:11:25.639 --> 00:11:29.829 has classified any form of nighttime shift work 00:11:29.853 --> 00:11:33.035 as a probable carcinogen, 00:11:33.059 --> 00:11:35.726 because of a disruption of your sleep-wake rhythms. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:37.830 --> 00:11:40.560 So you may have heard of that old maxim 00:11:40.584 --> 00:11:42.696 that you can sleep when you're dead. 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:44.790 Well, I'm being quite serious now -- 00:11:44.814 --> 00:11:47.425 it is mortally unwise advice. 00:11:48.375 --> 00:11:53.412 We know this from epidemiological studies across millions of individuals. 00:11:53.436 --> 00:11:55.417 There's a simple truth: 00:11:55.441 --> 00:11:58.845 the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. 00:11:58.869 --> 00:12:02.424 Short sleep predicts all cause mortality. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:04.940 --> 00:12:09.109 And if increasing your risk for the development of cancer 00:12:09.133 --> 00:12:11.377 or even Alzheimer's disease 00:12:11.401 --> 00:12:15.577 were not sufficiently disquieting, 00:12:15.601 --> 00:12:19.299 we have since discovered that a lack of sleep will even erode 00:12:19.323 --> 00:12:23.396 the very fabric of biological life itself, 00:12:24.681 --> 00:12:26.673 your DNA genetic code. 00:12:28.038 --> 00:12:31.974 So here in this study, they took a group of healthy adults 00:12:31.998 --> 00:12:35.737 and they limited them to six hours of sleep a night 00:12:35.761 --> 00:12:37.412 for one week, 00:12:37.436 --> 00:12:41.233 and then they measured the change in their gene activity profile 00:12:41.257 --> 00:12:43.701 relative to when those same individuals 00:12:43.725 --> 00:12:46.272 were getting a full eight hours of sleep a night. 00:12:47.451 --> 00:12:49.267 And there were two critical findings. 00:12:50.204 --> 00:12:55.275 First, a sizable and significant 711 genes 00:12:55.299 --> 00:12:57.627 were distorted in their activity, 00:12:57.651 --> 00:12:59.094 caused by a lack of sleep. 00:12:59.923 --> 00:13:03.050 The second result was that about half of those genes 00:13:03.074 --> 00:13:05.517 were actually increased in their activity. 00:13:05.842 --> 00:13:07.771 The other half were decreased. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:08.448 --> 00:13:11.729 Now those genes that were switched off by a lack of sleep 00:13:11.753 --> 00:13:15.242 were genes associated with your immune system, 00:13:15.266 --> 00:13:18.106 so once again, you can see that immune deficiency. 00:13:19.348 --> 00:13:22.421 In contrast, those genes that were actually upregulated 00:13:22.445 --> 00:13:24.817 or increased by way of a lack of sleep, 00:13:24.841 --> 00:13:28.739 were genes associated with the promotion of tumors, 00:13:28.763 --> 00:13:33.914 genes associated with long-term chronic inflammation within the body, 00:13:33.938 --> 00:13:36.740 and genes associated with stress, 00:13:36.764 --> 00:13:39.793 and, as a consequence, cardiovascular disease. 00:13:41.171 --> 00:13:44.831 There is simply no aspect of your wellness 00:13:44.855 --> 00:13:48.122 that can retreat at the sign of sleep deprivation 00:13:48.146 --> 00:13:49.960 and get away unscathed. 00:13:50.912 --> 00:13:53.920 It's rather like a broken water pipe in your home. 00:13:53.944 --> 00:13:57.587 Sleep loss will leak down into every nook and cranny 00:13:57.611 --> 00:13:59.997 of your physiology, 00:14:00.021 --> 00:14:03.926 even tampering with the very DNA nucleic alphabet 00:14:03.950 --> 00:14:06.790 that spells out your daily health narrative. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:09.866 --> 00:14:12.549 And at this point, you may be thinking, 00:14:12.573 --> 00:14:15.105 "Oh my goodness, how do I start to get better sleep? 00:14:15.129 --> 00:14:17.374 What are you tips for good sleep?" 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:22.558 Well, beyond avoiding the damaging and harmful impact 00:14:22.582 --> 00:14:25.501 of alcohol and caffeine on sleep, 00:14:25.525 --> 00:14:27.962 and if you're struggling with sleep at night, 00:14:27.986 --> 00:14:30.167 avoiding naps during the day, 00:14:30.191 --> 00:14:32.334 I have two pieces of advice for you. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:33.104 --> 00:14:35.918 The first is regularity. 00:14:35.942 --> 00:14:39.343 Go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, 00:14:39.367 --> 00:14:42.428 no matter whether it's the weekday or the weekend. 00:14:42.452 --> 00:14:45.197 Regularity is king, 00:14:45.221 --> 00:14:47.182 and it will anchor your sleep 00:14:47.206 --> 00:14:50.518 and improve the quantity and the quality of that sleep. 00:14:52.372 --> 00:14:55.054 The second is keep it cool. 00:14:56.088 --> 00:14:58.515 Your body needs to drop its core temperature 00:14:58.539 --> 00:15:02.752 by about two to three degrees Fahrenheit to initiate sleep 00:15:02.776 --> 00:15:04.856 and then to stay asleep, 00:15:04.880 --> 00:15:07.372 and it's the reason you will always find it easier 00:15:07.396 --> 00:15:09.777 to fall asleep in a room that's too cold 00:15:09.801 --> 00:15:11.045 than too hot. 00:15:12.013 --> 00:15:15.529 So aim for a bedroom temperature of around 65 degrees, 00:15:15.553 --> 00:15:17.507 or about 18 degrees Celsius. 00:15:17.531 --> 00:15:20.298 That's going to be optimal for the sleep of most people. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:22.446 --> 00:15:25.943 And then finally, in taking a step back, then, 00:15:25.967 --> 00:15:29.160 what is the mission-critical statement here? 00:15:30.771 --> 00:15:32.987 Well, I think it may be this: 00:15:33.011 --> 00:15:38.283 sleep, unfortunately, is not an optional lifestyle luxury. 00:15:39.105 --> 00:15:43.652 Sleep is a nonnegotiable biological necessity. 00:15:44.892 --> 00:15:48.483 It is your life-support system, 00:15:48.507 --> 00:15:53.141 and it is Mother Nature's best effort yet at immortality. 00:15:54.709 --> 00:15:59.225 And the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations 00:15:59.249 --> 00:16:04.466 is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, 00:16:04.490 --> 00:16:07.156 even the safety and the education of our children. 00:16:08.323 --> 00:16:11.339 It's a silent sleep loss epidemic, 00:16:11.363 --> 00:16:14.728 and it's fast becoming one of the greatest public health challenges 00:16:14.752 --> 00:16:17.474 that we face in the 21st century. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:20.294 --> 00:16:25.377 I believe it is now time for us to reclaim our right 00:16:25.401 --> 00:16:26.872 to a full night of sleep, 00:16:28.012 --> 00:16:30.169 and without embarrassment 00:16:30.193 --> 00:16:33.592 or that unfortunate stigma of laziness. 00:16:34.638 --> 00:16:40.622 And in doing so, we can be reunited with the most powerful elixir of life, 00:16:42.038 --> 00:16:44.741 the Swiss Army knife of health, as it were. 00:16:46.667 --> 00:16:49.311 And with that soapbox rant over, 00:16:49.335 --> 00:16:51.430 I will simply say, good night, good luck, 00:16:51.454 --> 00:16:52.604 and above all ... 00:16:54.889 --> 00:16:56.651 I do hope you sleep well. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:56.675 --> 00:16:58.033 Thank you very much indeed. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:58.057 --> 00:17:02.588 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:17:02.612 --> 00:17:03.770 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:03.794 --> 00:17:06.636 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:17:06.660 --> 00:17:08.203 Thank you so much. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:08.227 --> 00:17:10.970 David Biello: No, no, no. Stay there for a second. 00:17:10.994 --> 00:17:13.546 Good job not running away, though. I appreciate that. 00:17:13.570 --> 00:17:14.814 So that was terrifying. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:14.838 --> 00:17:17.934 Matt Walker: You're welcome. DB: Yes, thank you, thank you. 00:17:18.314 --> 00:17:23.490 Since we can't catch up on sleep, what are we supposed to do? 00:17:23.514 --> 00:17:27.046 What do we do when we're, like, tossing and turning in bed late at night 00:17:27.070 --> 00:17:30.132 or doing shift work or whatever else? NOTE Paragraph 00:17:30.156 --> 00:17:32.497 MW: So you're right, we can't catch up on sleep. 00:17:32.521 --> 00:17:33.846 Sleep is not like the bank. 00:17:33.870 --> 00:17:35.910 You can't accumulate a debt 00:17:35.934 --> 00:17:38.626 and then hope to pay it off at a later point in time. 00:17:38.650 --> 00:17:41.794 I should also note the reason that it's so catastrophic 00:17:41.818 --> 00:17:44.872 and that our health deteriorates so quickly, 00:17:44.896 --> 00:17:47.633 first, it's because human beings are the only species 00:17:47.657 --> 00:17:50.135 that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep 00:17:50.159 --> 00:17:52.548 for no apparent reason. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:52.572 --> 00:17:53.724 DB: Because we're smart. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:53.748 --> 00:17:58.573 MW: And I make that point because it means that Mother Nature, 00:17:58.597 --> 00:18:00.287 throughout the course of evolution, 00:18:00.311 --> 00:18:04.614 has never had to face the challenge of this thing called sleep deprivation. 00:18:05.295 --> 00:18:08.707 So she's never developed a safety net, 00:18:08.731 --> 00:18:10.859 and that's why when you undersleep, 00:18:10.883 --> 00:18:15.217 things just sort of implode so quickly, both within the brain and the body. 00:18:15.241 --> 00:18:18.014 So you just have to prioritize. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:18.038 --> 00:18:21.340 DB: OK, but tossing and turning in bed, 00:18:21.364 --> 00:18:22.775 what do I do? NOTE Paragraph 00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:27.418 MW: So if you are staying in bed awake for too long, 00:18:27.442 --> 00:18:30.695 you should get out of bed and go to a different room 00:18:30.719 --> 00:18:32.032 and do something different. 00:18:32.056 --> 00:18:36.377 The reason is because your brain will very quickly associate your bedroom 00:18:36.401 --> 00:18:38.720 with the place of wakefulness, 00:18:38.744 --> 00:18:41.433 and you need to break that association. 00:18:41.457 --> 00:18:44.354 So only return to bed when you are sleepy, 00:18:44.378 --> 00:18:47.917 and that way you will relearn the association that you once had, 00:18:47.941 --> 00:18:50.449 which is your bed is the place of sleep. 00:18:50.473 --> 00:18:52.132 So the analogy would be, 00:18:52.156 --> 00:18:55.732 you'd never sit at the dinner table, waiting to get hungry, 00:18:55.756 --> 00:18:58.719 so why would you lie in bed, waiting to get sleepy? NOTE Paragraph 00:18:59.548 --> 00:19:01.548 DB: Well, thank you for that wake-up call. 00:19:01.572 --> 00:19:02.741 Great job, Matt. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:02.765 --> 00:19:04.961 MW: You're very welcome. Thank you very much.