Transcription - Health Decoder - Do You Really Need Eight Hours of Sleep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJj8gt4e1uA
This week on Health Decode, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. Well that’s a little dramatic, but seriously, do you actually need eight hours of sleep?
You got a busy life, what with work, errands, and all that cruising J-date to find junior new mommy. While everyone always going on about the recommended 7-9 hours a night, there are people out there like Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher and Madonna who famously thrive on about just four hours of shut-eye at night. So what’s stopping you from joining the ranks of the hyper-productive? Cowardice? Lack of willpower? Nope, it’s something you can’t control, genetics. Now before you set your alarm for 4 am and start injecting that latte directly into your eyeballs, you should know that people who really get by on that little sleep without the aid of naps, coffee or a clenched fist full of trucker amphetamines.
Meatball, meatball , meatball, [unidentifiable]…Make up only 5% of the population. A landmark study at the University of California, San Francisco, researchers identified a genetic mutation which is responsible for this trick. So if you weren’t born a short sleeper, don’t expect to become one.
But what will happen to the 95% of us who aren’t sleep mutants, if we attempted to tackle a 4-hour sleep schedule anyway? The answer is awful, awful things. Skipping on your beauty sleep will leave you more than just looking
whacked. In addition to having decreased short-team memory, alertness and attention spans. Researchers in Australia found that being awake for 18 hours produces the same impairment as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. After 24 hours awake it’s the equivalent of 0.10%. …[unidentifiable] ..
Put it in perspective, .08% is the legal limit in most states. The national highway traffic safety administration conservatively estimates that at least 100,000 police reported automobile crashes and 1,550 deaths each year are the result of driver fatigue. Other accidents caused by human fatigue? The Challenger Explosion, the crash of the Exxon Valdez, the partial nuclear meltdown of Three Mile Island and a full-on nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Oh you sleepy, sleepy Russians. “I’m not sleeping I’m just resting eyes, I was up very late at the blue jeans American dance party.”
That’s not enough to scare you back into bed, there’s health risks involved with sleep deprivation as well. Several study have found that 1 or 2 consecutive nights of only 4 hours of sleep can trigger increased heart rate, blood pressure and inflammation, as well as impaired glucose tolerance and increase appetite even an otherwise healthy young adult.
So even if you’re young burning the candle at both ends puts you at greater risk of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and depression. Everyone sleep needs are different, you really wanna get ahead? Get the
sleep you need, probably between 7 to 9 hours and tackle the world fresh tomorrow. That’s all for this week health decoder, please sure to subscribe for more health decoder episode