Instant Genius - How to Hack Your Sleep: How not getting enough sleep affects your health

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Lots of us will have at some points in our lives woken up feeling groggy after getting a poor night’s sleep. But what causes us to have trouble sleeping, what effect does it have on our health and what can we do about it? In this episode, we catch up Prof Matt Jones, a neuroscientist based at the University of Bristol. He tells us how our sleep needs vary across our lifetimes, how not getting enough sleep can affect our ability to think straight and form memories, and why a lack of sleep can leave so many of us feeling cranky and impulsive. This episode is presented in partnership with Lumie. https://www.lumie.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you'll hear a world-leading experts and scientists talking about the most fascinating ideas, in science and technology today. I'm Jason Goodyear, commissioning editor of BBC Science Focus. Lots of us will have at some points in our lives woken up feeling groggy after getting a poor night's sleep. But what causes us to have trouble sleeping?

What effect does it have on our health and what can we do about it? In this episode, presented to you in partnership with Loomie, we catch up with Professor Matt Jones, a neuroscientist based at the University of Bristol. He tells us how our sleep needs vary across our lifetimes, how not getting enough sleep can affect our ability to think straight and form memories, and why a lack of sleep can leave so many of us feeling cranky and impulsive.

So welcome to the podcast. Thanks very much for joining us. Thanks. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation. So today we're talking about sleep deprivation. So let's get the first thing out of the way then. What does that mean? Sleep deprivation to me means a quite extreme form of torture, essentially, not letting someone sleep. But I guess a lot of people think more about sleep disruption or sleep disturbances, and they're very common. Essentially, that just means not getting the sleep you need. And of course, that could happen over a range of timescales. You might have one rough night because the students next door are having a party. Fine, that happens. It's not going to do any lasting harm. Or you might consistently struggle to get to sleep.

or maintain your sleep. And that's more problematic, of course. So how much sleep should we be getting? That depends who we are. So sleep changes over the life course and it serves different functions. And so we need different amounts of it. So if you take a newborn baby, for example, sleep is a critical time that supports brain development. And they need a lot of sleep, 12 hours or so. And most parents will have experienced the fact that babies are essentially nocturnal. So they tend not to sleep when we would like, but still, they need a lot of it. And then that generally, our need for sleep decreases slightly over the life course. So a healthy young adult needs seven to eight hours of sleep. Adolescents need maybe slightly

more, eight or nine hours of sleep. But it's really important, I think, to recognize that sleep isn't this monolithic thing that we all need the same amount of, that it does change. I think the amount of sleep is also misleading sometimes because you might have a lot of poor quality sleep. Clearly that would leave you with some form of sleep deprivation. And the timing of sleep is important as well. So there's evidence that it's not just the amount you sleep, but having a regular sort of sleep pattern is also very important for supporting brain and body health. So you mentioned poor quality sleep. So what is that? It's rotten if you experience it, as I increasingly do. So for example, you might find it very easy to fall asleep, but then you wake up in the small hours of the morning and struggle to get back to sleep. Or you might have repeated interruptions to your night's sleep, normally referred to as sleep fragmentation. And as you might intuit, that just prevents the brain and the body harnessing all the opportunities that it would like to. harness because the sleep is imperfect, is interrupted in some way. Yeah, so I also have lots of

problems with sleeping personally. So what are some common causes of sleep disruption or sleep deprivation? So one for me is the bin lorry. Well, I recommend Jason not sleeping in the bin lorry, but you are right that our environment is probably the most common influencer of our sleep quality. and so light pollution, noise pollution, even air pollution have a bearing on the amount and quality of our sleep. And there's some fairly alarming reports from big European studies of how many life years are lost to light pollution in city centres, for example, where the environment tends to be brighter. And of course, if you translate those kind of findings to other parts of the world, less developed nations, for example, where lots of people are covered. inhabiting in large groups and the housing quality is poorer. You can imagine it's just much harder to get good sleep. There are other common influences. Shift work is one good example. I'm based in

Bristol and about 30% of our working population work overnight, which is quite striking. You know, working in hospitality or down at the port, for example. And understanding how their shift patterns affect their sleeping patterns is really important. for them. Of course, there are diseases that affect sleep amount and quality, and they may be diseases of the body, like chronic pain, for example, or obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, as it's often referred to. And then, unfortunately, mental illness, which is very common, is also associated with sleep disruption. So anxiety, depression, psychotic disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, they all have a relationship with sleep, sometimes,

to unpick cause and effect. It is the disease causing sleep problems or vice versa. And rather frustratingly, the answer is normally a bit of both. So does sleep disruption or sleep deprivation differ from insomnia? The semantics are complicated, I think. Insomnia is a form of sleep disruption or a cause of sleep disruption. And clinically, insomnia is defined as having difficulty, falling and or staying asleep. And it may be acute. It may, you know, 30% of us will experience a bout of acute insomnia at some time during our lives.

Or it may be chronic. And horrifyingly, 10 to 15% of us have chronic problems getting to sleep or staying asleep. So insomnia, I think, it encapsulates one of the commonest forms of sleep disruption. But there are other sleep disorders as well. There's hypersomnia, people who are too sleepy. there are parasomnias, like nightmares, for example, persistent nightmares. The latest somnia on the scene is orthosomnia,

which is kind of emerging as a clinical syndrome that arises because people become so obsessed with sleeping well and with measuring their sleep using various gadgets, that it actually interferes with their sleep, a kind of unkind, vicious cycle, if you will. So let's have a look at some of the effects of not getting enough sleep then. I think maybe the first one people listening will think of is brain fog and a change in your cognitive function or ability to think. So what's going on there? Yeah, that's right. I am very familiar with that difficulty. Personally, I find if I have

had a rough couple of nights, I feel okay and I can think coherent thoughts. When I have to express them, words fail me. I guess thinking is one of the hardest things our brains do. Right. So it's probably particularly vulnerable to things like sleep disruption. But sleep also enables some specific mechanisms that support our daily thinking. So for example, you know, as we live our daily lives and we learn more and more about our world and we interact with other people, we experience stresses and strains, then our brains grow more and more excitable during the course of the day. That kind of cumulative activity ramps up while we're awake. And if we weren't allowed to reset in some shape or form, then who knows, maybe our heads would go pop eventually.

So sleep plays an important role as a kind of thermostat, bringing our brain activity back down into its optimal working range. That's one thing that could be disrupted by poor sleep and therefore interfere with our ability to think clearly. Sleep also helps to prioritize which of our memories to bank and which to forget. And so there's a kind of filtering process that happens during sleep. And if sleep is disrupted, then you get a bit overloaded, I guess. You get a bit tangled up with what's important and what isn't. Sleep helps to integrate new information into our existing knowledge base.

And that's obviously vital because it allows you to kind of bridge across your life's experience and make the best of it. And sleep also helps to support processes like creativity, for example. So without healthy sleep, it's harder to think more widely and see how different. aspects of life are interconnected. No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet.

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That's why do we get cranky when we haven't slept properly? What are you talking about? Oh, sorry. Yeah, so sleep is really important for regulating our emotions. And so without healthy sleep, we're on a shorter fuse, basically. We've become impulsive and quicker to leap to the wrong conclusion. So sleep is important for helping to set our experience at the right emotional context. And if sleep is disrupted, then we're on that short of views and tend to just be less nice,

essentially. There are some studies showing that people with poor sleep are less likable when their likability is scored by others. And in fact, that can even sort of percolate down a hierarchy. So in a corporate setting, in a company, for example, if the senior management are poor, sleepers and are therefore cranky and impulsive, they're more likely to make unethical decisions, and that sort of filters down the company. Now mechanistically, that relates to sleep's roles in, again, kind of setting the excitability of core brain circuits that regulate our emotions

and in setting the levels of the neurochemicals, the neurotransmitters that enable our brain to function healthily. It does make you wonder, makes me wonder anyway, about some influential world leaders who claim to get by on very little sleep. And there is this culture of kind of bragging about how little sleep I've had. But perhaps some of those people would be nicer, more likable, make most sensible decisions if they slept better. There are some people though who can get by on less sleep. So there are some genetic variants, some quite rare mutations in particular genes, which do seem to allow people to sleep less and yet have no detrimental outcomes. Typically, people with those mutations can get by on, for example, six hours of sleep,

as opposed to seven or eight hours of sleep. So it's not a huge effect. Nevertheless, there is something in it. So you sort of touch on this earlier, but sleep and mental health seem to be really closely linked. So people with depression, anxiety disorders, or even substance abuse problems tend to struggle with sleep. So can we explore that? Yeah, again, we have to be very cautious about which came first. On balance, the evidence indicates that sleep disruption precedes a diagnosis of a mental illness and it's probably exacerbating the rate of which people become ill. Again, there's probably a range of vulnerabilities. So perhaps if you're unfortunate in some way, your genetics dictate that you're particularly less able to cope with disrupted sleep than

it's more likely to push you towards mental illness, for example. The relationship with substance use disorders relates a bit to our previous discussion about impulsivity. So I think after poor sleep, we're less resilient, we're less able to take a considered view of the world around us. And so if we're already vulnerable to a substance use disorder, then it's going to make it harder to say no, essentially, which will again, set up this vicious cycle of poor sleep, making it more likely that you will abuse a substance, making it more likely you'll sleep poorly and so on. So how about physical effects then?

So I'm thinking about first off the immune system. We have to be cautious with bodies because it's all connected and the healthy function of the immune system is reliant on healthy function of the nervous system to some extent as well. And I think if I had to pick, I would say sleep is mainly to support the functioning of our nervous system. But of course, our nervous system supports

the rest of the body. So sleep is important for healthy immune function and yet there's some evidence for example that a vaccine is more likely to be effective if it's followed by a good night's sleep. In case you're wondering, there's some debate about whether that's true for COVID vaccines or not. But for other vaccines, it has been shown that healthy sleep after receiving your vaccination is more likely to allow that vaccination to take root. Sleep disruptions also associated with inflammation and inflammation is grabbing a lot of headlines at the moment as a kind of universal baddie. So it's certainly bad for nervous system function. It's a risk factor for depression, for Alzheimer's disease and so on. So again, there's this tight interrelationship between sleep

and immune and inflammatory function. One of the great things about being a sleep researcher is that sleep impacts so many aspects of human lives. And one of the horrible things about being sleep researcher is the same. So, you know, as an experimental neuroscientist, it's very hard sometimes to design the experiment, which allows you to say that sleep disruption caused X, as opposed to X caused sleep disruption. Yeah, so you mentioned that Alzheimer's, but I've read that poor sleeping has been linked to all sorts of things like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure. I mean, what do we know about that? That is true, first pass, and again, that relates to the kind of bodywide impact of sleep, and the fact that sleep disruption can exacerbate

immune dysfunction and inflammation and so on, which are all associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, other cardiometabolic disorders. Again, we have to be cautious, though, because lots of those things are interrelated and confound one another in complicated ways. We have to take into account, for example, socioeconomic status, for example, which will have a bearing on healthier diet you can afford, which will impact your metabolism, may have a bearing on the environment in which you sleep as well. So that's why these sort of big longitudinal population studies are so important to really pin down which is chicken and which is egg in this kind of context.

It's kind of easy to say, well, you should sleep better, but there's a real risk that we just get people obsessed about sleep and worrying about it so much that it stops them sleeping as well as they need to. So I think we need to take a measured approach and not just repeat this messaging that bad sleep is bad, that also put a positive spin on it. You know, think about all the possibilities that sleep enable. Think about how kind of free your brain is to draw those different connections between your experiences whilst you're asleep.

And think about that more positive aspect rather than just banging on and on about how dangerous bad sleep is. Yeah, so sorry for saying this, but following on from that, how about, like, some people say chronic lack of sleep can lead to things like hallucinations and psychosis. So what do we know about that? Yeah, that does appear to be true. So one unfortunate case study, for instance, is in bipolar disorder where people experience quite extreme mood swings between a psychotic kind of hyperactive state and a depressed state. If people who aren't aware that they're a risk of bipolar disorder, take a transatlantic flight, for example, and experience an abrupt shift in time zones as you fly from the UK to the west coast of the US, for instance, then that can,

kind of push them over the edge and bring on a psychotic episode. But that's true of all of us to some extent. I mean, were we all to prevent ourselves from sleeping for three or four nights consecutively, it's very likely that we would start hallucinating and showing symptoms of psychotic disorders. So, you know, that's pretty convincing evidence that sleep disruption is causal and can really drive people into these really unpleasant clinical symptoms. anxiety and depression are strongly associated with sleep disruption as well. And again, that's this classic vicious cycle really, where if you're anxious, you're less

likely to sleep well, if you're less well rested, you're more likely to be anxious, since it's very hard to break like cycle. So how about hormones? We haven't touched on that yet. What role do they play in our sleep? Well, again, it's all interconnected in it. And so hormones are often in the mix. There are lots of different hormones, of course, but I guess most famously, stress hormones

are associated with sleep. And the levels of our stress hormones, like cortisol, for example, vary regularly over the course of the day and night. They have a diurnal or circadian rhythm that's related to the body clock. So in a healthy scenario, they're actually helping to modulate whether we're sleepy or whether we're ready to wake up or not. And you can imagine that if you're chronically stressed or chronically stressed or chronicical, anxious, then a dysregulation of those hormones might then interfere with your sleep

week cycle. Of course, reproductive hormones are in the mix as well, and so sleep quality and quantity does vary over the menstrual cycle, for example, which I'm very fortunate not to have had to deal with directly. And then famously, menopause is a terrible time for sleep. And again, I think the males of the species need to be a bit more sympathetic about that. And perhaps, you know, clinically there's something more proactive we could do to support healthy sleep during menopause, which is a big sleep disruptor and that might relate to other consequences of sleep disruption as people grow older. So talking about that, what advice can we give to people who are listening, who are perhaps

struggling with their sleep? So I try to avoid listing all the usual stuff which has been published in many, many articles about sleep hygiene as it's called, which is perhaps a slightly unfortunate phrase. It doesn't sound very appealing, does it? But it's true that keeping a regular sleep wake rhythm is very helpful. Going to bed at a regular time every night, waking up at a regular not too late time every morning, all that kind of stuff will help to set your rhythm. And your body kind of learns to preempt what's happening and tune into that regular rhythm. Obviously, if you can afford to have a comfortable bed and a cool, dark bedroom in a quiet place.

That's great, but not everyone can afford that. Some advice is to take a hot bath before bed every night. Well, fine, but that costs a fortune, so I don't think that's really practical. Really, I think my main advice is to think positively about sleep. Be excited about sleep. Read a bit more about what's going on in your brains during sleep. Think about how it's supporting your memory and your decision-making and your positive emotions, and really open your eyes to closing your eyes, I guess, to enjoy

sleep's possibilities. So sort of by way of summing up, if somebody is really struggling with this sort of thing, at what point should they seek professional help? Yes, sooner rather than later, I'm painfully aware that advising people generically about sleep hygiene, for example, doesn't work at an individual level for many people. So if you feel like you're consistently not getting sleep that leaves you rested, go to your GP and use that as the route in to finding clinical support. There are lots of safe ways to try and help people sleep. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is one. Like most medical treatments, it doesn't work for everybody, but it's very unlikely to do any harm. And like most

treatments, the earlier you implement them, the better. So I don't want to cause a deluge of people rushing to their GPs. But be honest with yourself about this. If you're consistently struggling over a month or more to get sufficient sleep, then it's time to seek help. There's some great charities out there as well. The sleep charity in the UK, for example, does amazing work. So it's worth visiting their website as a good starting point. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius. Brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was the University of Bristol's Professor Matt Jones. If you liked what you just heard,

then please do consider subscribing to Instant Genius on your preferred podcast platform. The current issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy wherever you buy your favourite magazines or download us on your app store of choice. You can also find us online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. The texture and emotional depth of music

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