Matt Walker Promo Clip
Clip: Season 7 Episode 6 | 1m 20sVideo has Closed Captions
Matt Walker speaks on the optimal amount of hours of sleep we should get a night.
Matt Walker speaks on the optimal amount of hours of sleep we should get a night. He then describes a sleep study that compared subjects who were limited to six hours of sleep a night to those who were allowed a full eight hours. After even one night, researchers could distinguish the differences in the two groups’ output and overall mood.
Matt Walker Promo Clip
Clip: Season 7 Episode 6 | 1m 20sVideo has Closed Captions
Matt Walker speaks on the optimal amount of hours of sleep we should get a night. He then describes a sleep study that compared subjects who were limited to six hours of sleep a night to those who were allowed a full eight hours. After even one night, researchers could distinguish the differences in the two groups’ output and overall mood.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- People are probably unlikely to be able to consistently survive on less than six hours of sleep without having some degree of brain or body consequence.
After one night of short sleep, we can measure those impairments so it doesn't take very long.
There was a great study done, not by myself, but some colleagues over in the United Kingdom, and they took a group of individuals and they limited them to six hours of sleep for essentially one week, and then they measured the change in their gene activity profile relative to those same individuals when they were getting a full eight hours of sleep.
And there were two key findings.
The first was that around 711 genes were distorted in their activity caused by that six hours of sleep, and by the, that is, you know, not too far off from some people's national averages.
The second was that about half of those genes were increased in their activity caused by a lack of sleep.
The other half were decreased.
Those genes that were actually increased in their activity were genes associated with the promotion of tumors, genes that were associated with cardiovascular disease and stress, and genes that were associated with long-term chronic inflammation within the body.
Whereas those genes that were actually switched off or sort of turned down were genes that were associated with your immune system.
