Once every year millions of people in the
Northern Hemisphere lose one hour of sleep for one night only, due to daylight savings
time, when the clocks go back. The health consequences of this loss of only
a mere hour of sleep are astronomical. Researchers, examining millions of hospital
admission records worldwide found that the rates of heart attack on the day following
the evening when the clocks go back skyrocket. Similarly, in the Autumn, when the clocks
go forward and thus we gain an hour of sleep, there is a significant drop in hospital admissions. In the 1960s a seminal experiment took place
that had disturbing results. Eight healthy young males were hooked up to
brain scanning equipment and placed in their own room for five consecutive days and nights. The purpose of the experiment was not to deprive
them of sleep but deprive them of dreams. Every night when they slept they were allowed
as much NREM (Non-rapid eye movement) sleep as they desired but as soon as their brain
activity indicated they had slipped into REM sleep (dream sleep) someone would enter the
room, wake them up and get them to do maths problems for ten minutes to prevent them from
falling immediately back asleep. The full five nights of dream-deprivation
weren't required to produce some terrifying symptoms. After just three nights of little to no REM
sleep, the participants all showed extreme irritability and became hostile towards the
experimenters. They also became extremely paranoid and were
convinced that the whole experiment was a clandestine government conspiracy. They began to generally distrust those in
charge and some of the participants accused the researchers of poisoning their food. We all know that sleep deprivation can affect
one’s physical health but do you really know to what disastrous extent? And how little sleep you need to miss to inflict
severe consequences upon your body? If you don’t get at least eight hours of
sleep every night your immune system’s ability to function properly disintegrates and you’ll
be significantly more likely to catch a virus. Your focus levels will also plummet. Studies show people who sleep less than seven
hours per night are much more likely to gain excessive weight. There are two hormones that your body uses
to tell your brain when you should feel hungry and when you’re full. Leptin, makes you feel full when it’s released,
whereas its opposite, ghrelin, stimulates your hunger. When you miss just an hour of sleep, the following
day your levels of leptin will drop so you will need to eat more to feel full throughout
the day and your ghrelin levels will shoot up so you’ll want to snack more throughout
the day. Sleep less than 5 hours per night and studies
have demonstrated that your chances of developing type II diabetes shoot up. Sleep deprivation is also strongly linked
to increased levels of heart disease and stroke. In 2018 a Chinese man died of a stroke after
staying up for 48 hours straight to watch the Football world cup. During the very same tournament, another man
died of a heart attack after staying up for several days and a third man was found dead
in front of his computer screen that had been broadcasting a world cup match. Just for the record, football isn’t indiscriminately
killing people, it’s just that fans often stay up for days to watch football matches
during the world cup that are broadcast at unsociable hours all across the globe. But there is one side effect of sleep deprivation
that new research has only now fully illuminated and it is particularly worrying. Your brain activity, like a car engine, creates
waste. Numerous toxins accumulate in your brain over
the course of the day but your body has a solution. Every night your brain gets a power wash,
cerebrospinal fluid washes over your brain whilst you sleep, clearing away the toxins. This process is carried out by your brain’s
glymphatic system. To put it simply, if you don’t get eight
hours of sleep per night you are missing out on some of this power washing, meaning some
of the toxins will remain in your brain the following morning and over time these accumulate. Over many years of sleep deprivation you can
build up quite a nasty stockpile of brain toxins, the only way to get rid of them is
to make up for all your lost sleep, your sleep debt. Scientists have labelled brains that have
a large build-up of toxins as ‘dirty brains’. Having a dirty brain can cause your brain
activity to become foggy and not function optimally. But one of these toxins is thought to be particularly
damaging, Beta-amyloid. Beta-amyloid is a toxic protein that studies
show could cause Alzheimer’s disease. The more you let this toxin build up by not
sleeping the more likely you are to develop Alzheimer’s. In a recent study, scientists injected dye
into the glymphatic system of mice so they could watch the cerebrospinal fluid doing
its power washing. They found that during the day the fluid barely
floes through the brain, but during sleep, particularly REM sleep, the fluid flushes
through the brain very rapidly. Some researchers have even postulated that
sleep deprivation could be the biggest contributor to Alzheimer's and that by catching up on
sleep those that would otherwise develop it could stave it off. But the effects of sleep deprivation go deeper
and far freakier than physical health. In 1959 a radio DJ Peter Tripp thought it
would be a good idea to set a record for staying awake and he broadcast the whole experience
on his radio show. For the benefit of charity and scientific
research, Tripp pledged to stay awake for 200 hours straight and incredibly he did,
but not without some odd and terrible consequences. After the first couple of days, he started
to abuse everyone around him and he made his barber cry, whom he had known for years. Then, after 120 hours of wakefulness, the
hallucinations kicked in. He reported walking into someone else’s
hotel room and showering, then when he opened a drawer to retrieve his clothes he witnessed
searing flames raging inside the drawer and jumping out at him. At one point, when one of the scientists walked
up to him, Tripp thought he was an undertaker, come to take him away and bury him - Tripp
ran away, into the street. He started to see faces everywhere and in
the objects around him. He began to see spiders in his shoes and got
frustrated that nobody else could see them. The scientists monitoring Tripp noticed something
very interesting - the hallucinations came and went in 90-minute cycles, which matches
the pattern of dreaming whilst we sleep. It’s as though Tripp was trying to dream
even though he was awake, at the very same time intervals that Tripp would have dreamt,
had he been asleep. With the help of stimulant drugs, Tripp made
it to 200 hours. Then enjoyed a much-needed 24-hour sleep. The scientists hoped the eight days of no
sleep would have no lasting, permanent effect on Tripp. And sure enough, after sleeping he claimed
he felt absolutely fine. But it didn’t seem that way for everyone
around him. His personality had changed from before the
experiment, he quickly lost his job and his wife divorced him, who claimed he had become
an entirely different man. Sleep deprivation can also kill in huge numbers,
it has happened more times than we probably know of. The Chernobyl explosion is considered the
worst nuclear disaster in history. Because of the nature of radiation, it is
almost impossible to quantify the number of deaths caused by the accident but it is likely
to be in the thousands and it still causes illness across Europe to this day. It is strongly thought that sleep deprivation
can be blamed for the catastrophe - the engineers working at 1 am, at the time of the explosion,
had been on shift for 13 hours straight and were severely sleep deprived. Similarly, in 1989, an Exxon Valdez oil supertanker
ran aground in Alaska spilling 258,000 barrels of crude oil into the water and soil, killing
profuse amounts of precious marine species including 500,000 sea birds and thousands
of otters, bald eagles and whales. The third-mate in charge of the vessel, who
made the fatal navigational error had only slept for six out of the previous 48 hours. But if prolonging your own life and that of
others aren’t convincing enough reasons to inspire you to catch up on sleep perhaps
one more reason will appeal to the narcissist in you and make you change your mind. If you don’t get enough sleep, you get ugly. Sleep deprivation causes paler skin, wrinkles,
bloodshot eyes and droopy eyelids. In a study in which participants were asked
to rate the attractiveness of people who had slept eight hours per night over two nights,
compared to people who only got four hours each night. Those who got just four hours sleep were consistently
rated as uglier and strangely people also thought they looked less intelligent. So turns out beauty sleep is a real thing. Thanks for watching. I’ve recently launched my first book which
I’m crowdfunding ‘Stick a Flag in it: 1,000 years of bizarre history from Britain
and beyond’. The crowdfunding campaign has reached 100%
so it’s definitely going to be published, thanks to everyone who has pledged. But there are still stretch goals to reach. So if you want a first-edition signed copy
then head on over to Unbound, the link is in the description, watch the launch video
if you haven’t already and pledge today. Thank you.
