Is sleep that important?

So am I? Actually I'm a little sleep deprived. I don't like it, Chuck. I I um feel a little dirty. I smell a little bit. You get this weird thing growing on my jawline that won't go away? Yeah, I just I just feel unhealthy from not having had enough sleep lately. How about you? Uh? Yeah, you know, I was actually just finding people. I wasn't awake. I'm sorry, I didn't really, I was just funny people. I wasn't really asleep. But I am a bit tired going out

of town this week. So I've been, you know, staying up a little later, getting things ready and Uh, I'm in the same way, a little rundown, a little foggy headed. You know, it's kind of funny that we should both be this sleepy on the same day we're going to discuss an article you wrote. Is sleep that important? Right you? You would almost think that we planned it? Yeah? Yeah, I actually didn't, you know, lose sleep in preparation for this. If you did, hats off to me. Yeah, exactly, So Chuck,

what I got from this article that you wrote. It's a fine pine article, by the way, thanks, Uh that you know, the University of Chicago is the place to be if you are interested in dedicating your career to sleep research. Is in the case yeah, and well yeah, they do a lot, but there's tons of sleep research out there. This is one of those articles that almost wrote itself because there's one thing that scientists like to study,

it's sleep. Yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing is, though, is we still don't have any definitive answers with for exactly why we sleep. Yeah. I mean, it sounds kind of odd to pose that question, but we don't know why we sleep other than to say I know what I mentioned the article. One of the old jokes that doctors say, is that, uh, sleep is to cure sleepiness. Yeah, and that's really the best answer they have at this

point still and it makes sense too. But lucky for you, after having been assigned to sleep that important for the site, uh, you were able to find out that we know plenty about all the bad things that happened when you don't get enough sleep, and there are lots of them. All. Well,

you know, give us a couple, will you. Well, I know, just let me quickly say before this is all in the last you know, fifty years or so, because before the early nineteen fifties, scientists thought it was just shut down mode and that like your brain slept and it was just your body is just catching up on all the uh, you know, your organs. They might even thought your organs shut down except for your heart. Not true. No, no, that's a really bad thing when your organs shut down.

That's not true at all. Because the doctor years later um hooked his son up to a a machine, brain wave machine Eugene Azarinsky of Surprise the Prize the University of Chica, Chicago, and he found that the brain actually there were periods where the brain actually sped up its activity oh really, Yeah, which is REM sleep r AM sleep, a rapid eye movement sleep exactly. Okay, so all of a sudden, what that's just like this uh this huge

hyper speed launched forward in sleep research, right. Uh yeah, at the time, it was you know, they found out that during REM sleep, you know, your eyes would trip I'm sorry, your eyes would twitch, and the limbs and facial muscles would move. It's kind of unsettling to see somebody in r EM sleep. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I would agree with that. So. Uh so he figured out basically that you know, not only are we shut down,

but we're more active in some areas of our brain. Uh. But most of the research since then has been done on what happens if you don't get enough sleep and the health impacts. Right. Well, one of the things that, um, that I understand about r M sleep is is, um, there's a theory that basically that's the stage where our brain is sorting through all the information we've taken in throughout the day. Yeah, that's one they and kind of

filing it away that this seems pretty logical to me. Actually, yeah, that would make sense, and unfortunately it's nothing they can really prove but I think that's a pretty good theory because you've take in things all day long, and uh, the analogy I'm making the articles that it's like a computer desktop and you're just filing everything away, and then when we sleep is when our brain kind of does the big masterfile, moves whatever needs to be in the

recycled bin to the recycled bin, and everything else is put on the hard drive. Basically, I think Chuck and I subscribe to that theory because we both share a common hatred of a cluttered desktop. Right, Yeah, it's terrible. It's really annoying. Yeah, it is. It throws me off. Well,

you know R E M sleep. After that discovery, um really kind of uh it became the superstar of sleep studies, didn't right, And for a long time they assume that if you don't have R E M sleep, you are going to suffer memory loss and all sorts of other

terrible things. Um. It sounds like from later studies and actually, this terrible accident that happened to an Israeli man Um who was hitting the head by shrapnel, suffered a brain trauma, and Um was incapable of achieving R E M sleep was still able to um go ahead and you know, move on to graduate from law school, which kind of undermines the idea that not getting r EM sleep, you know,

uh impairs your memory. Not getting r EM sleep does um screw with you physiologically though, right right, and now, just sleep deprivation in general, uh is no good for you at all. And we're talking will shorten your life? Tell them about the three week lab rats study. Oh yeah, the three the infamous three week labrates and is so unsettling. Yeah, that lab rats that would normally live for three years

would die and three weeks without sleep. And you know there's only one way to find that out, definitively, to poke these rats and keep them alife for three straight weeks. Can you imagine a worse existence? Now? And I can't imagine being the poker of the rat either. That's probably not funny. Well, think about it. They had to have poker's work on shifts or else there'd be pokers who had to stay up for three straight ranks. That maybe people were poking the pokers and but an unfair advantage.

It's an endless chain. Yeah, yeah, so sleep not only will killed lab rats, and that's if they don't sleep at all. So that's that's the far end of the spect it's still surprising. Three weeks, you know, equals death. Yeah, that's pretty scary. But some of the ways of death, some of the things that you can develop, like what hypertension, Yeah, hypertension. Um, I think Parkinson's disease you can get if you sleep

more than nine Yeah. The the trick is, I mean everyone's a little bit different, but the trick is to get that right amount of sleep. And they say it's generally for adults between six and eight hours, and too little can lead to a bunch of problems. Too much can lead to a bunch of problems. I found one get another University of Chicago study UM that that basically followed uh. I think ten healthy men uh in their twenties.

I think they were college students, UM and they got four hours of sleep per night, and after six days they were in a pre diabetic state after six days of just getting four hours of sleep. Wow. So yeah, apparently it can have some pretty bad health effects on you. Yeah,

that's crazy. I know. I was also looking into UH, polyphasic sleep, which is a k A. Da Vinci sleep, which I know a lot of people know about da Vinci was famous for taking twenty to thirty minute naps over a twenty four hour period, and that was how he got his sleep. Do you ever see that Seinfeld where Cramer tries that it does not pan out well for him? No, and it's probably not. I know that mainstream science doesn't endorse it, although a lot of people

are big believers in it. They have websites about polyphasic sleep where, you know, they just think it's the best thing since real sleep. Well, that's kind of the things that you One of the things that you pointed out in the article was that sleep is so different for everybody in demand for sleep or you know, not needing it, UM, that it's almost impossible to really conclusively study sleep, right

and come up with answers across the board. Right, But there are some generalities, right like how many how many hours to sleep do I need? I'm thirty two? You need between six and eight. I mean that's the wheelhouse for everybody. If you get less than that. UM, Actually Parkinson's is less or more than that. UM. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure. It can make you stupid.

Students perform uh less on test scores. If they don't get enough sleep, we'll check, check and check for me, because I get like nine or ten hours and nine. Yeah, that's that's you probably a little much. Yeah, that's not that's no good. You need to wake up earlier, my friend. But yeah, aside from all those things, uh, fatalities of all uh drowsy driving fatalities occur and kids basically to the age of five. So it's not as think about old people, you know, falling asleep off the side of

the road. This is happening more with with kids these days. And you know it's because kids are sleep deprived. You go to college, you're out from under the thumb of your folks, and uh, you don't sleep, you're up partying all night right. Well. Plus also, I mean it's it's kind of a common knowledge that older, older adults need less sleep, hence early bird specials, and you know that they're up in at them a lot earlier. That kind

of thing. On the other end of the spectrum, babies need like newborns point they need like um, tend to sixteen to eighteen hours and yeah, sixteen eighteen the first year of life. Yeah, and then uh, I think the three month mark or so is when babies start to recognize the circadian rhythm, which we've talked about, which is basically day is day night as night. You sleep at night, you're up during the day, but they're still sleeping ten to twelve hours and then napping a few hours on

top of that. And I noticed the owning your article made it sound like you're a little envious of babies getting to sleep that much. Are you sleep deprived? Uh? You know, I wake up pretty easily and I'm an early riser, so I'm pretty good. And do you do you experience daytime sleepiness? Like do you hit the wall

at like three or four in the afternoon? Not really, you really don't see I read I read an article that found that only forty of of people I think it was in your article, actually of people suffer from daytime sleepiness, right, So I'm like, what are the other sixty percent doing that? They're just feeling so good all

the time. I don't get it, because I get I hit a wall at like three, I have to start drinking coffee again for the second time that day, and not the second cup, sucking the second time, and each time consists of like three or four cups of coffee. What am I doing wrong? I don't know. Maybe they're taking tons and tons of happy drugs or something. I don't know these people maybe so well because because you know, I generally get to get a little sleeping during the

day as well. Okay, good, thank you there, I said it, Thank you, Chuck. I just I don't understand why you couldn't have been up front at the beginning. Well that's it for this one, obviously, Chuck nodding off, and frankly, I'm about to hit the wall again myself. So why don't you go check out his sleep? That important? Believe Chuck and I it is. Stick around though, to find out what article makes Chuck and I hungry for? We just Nat follows right after this, Chuck, you want to

tell him? Can you can you come to again? Let you go when I'm going to just bring you up today I asked the people to stick around and find out what article makes us hungry for Swedish meatballs? So we already podcasting? Yeah, yeah, we're almost at the end there, buddy, just hanging there. Just tell him what's the article? I think most people probably does is a giveaway anyone who's anyone who's ever been to Ikea knows did they serve

up and sell some yummy Swedish meatballs? And Chuck and I are not paid in any way, shape or formed by Ikea for this endorsement. We just like their meatballs that much. Although I think I speak for Chuck as well as myself when I say we kind of secretly hope i Kea will send us some for mentioning them how to be great. Yeah, well, they can go ahead and email us at the podcast if they want our address. In the meantime, you can go check out how i Kea Works Great article on how stuff works dot com

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