Hello Health Champions today I’m going To talk about what would happen if you Only slept four hours per night for 30 Nights well if you’re like me then You’ve probably lost some sleep from Time to time but the good news is if it Only happens once in a while then we Will have full recovery there’s no Permanent damage from that but what I Want to teach today what I want you to Understand is that the chronicity is the Problem that if we have chronic lack of Sleep now we get chronic damage and in Some cases that could be long lasting it Might be able to reverse it but it would Be difficult but in some ways we also Get some permanent or irreversible Damage so we’ll talk about all of that And the next question again of course is How many hours of sleep do I need and It’s not such an easy answer it’s just To give a simple number because if you Stay with with me throughout the video You’ll see what these variables are and What number might be right for you but Generally they recommend that adults get About seven to eight hours of sleep per Night and by that measure about One-third of us are sleep deprived for Adolescents or teens that number is About eight to ten hours and two-thirds Of them are sleep deprived but why is it That we have to sleep at all in order to Understand that we need to know what
Happens in the different stages so There’s four stages and in stage one and Two the body is basically relaxing it’s Getting into light sleep getting us Ready for the next stage and stage three Is called deep sleep or Delta Sleep Delta is the slowest brainwave Frequencies between zero and four Hertz And something very interesting happens Here this is where we we get our Periodic bursts of growth hormone and Growth hormone as the name says it’s to Grow things it’s to repair things and One thing it repairs is our DNA down at The cellular level we’re repairing this Really important stuff And we’re also making immune cells to Clean out debris and pathogens and even Cancer cells stage four is probably what Most people have heard of the REM sleep Rapid eye movement and this is because We’re Dreaming so we’re not as relaxed The brain is actually increasing Inactivity our heart rate and breath Rate increases because we’re processing Information And we are also a little bit paralyzed Because When We’re Dreaming we’re often Trying to act out these things that Happen these events and if we didn’t Paralyze the muscles then we’d be Flailing around all night long and the Reason we’re doing this dreaming and We’re going through this process is here
Is where we’re converting our events the Events from the past day we turn them Into long-term memories where process And integrating them so that we can make Sense of it and store it long term and If we get seven to eight hours of Quality sleep then we will cycle through These different stages several times so Stage one and two is basically just Relaxing our brains our hearts our Breath our muscles relax and slow down Stage three is where we have our Physical healing at the cellular level We’re repairing and fixing stuff and Stage four is for the mental aspect and This is where our mental capacity Changes which we’ll talk about if we go Long enough without sleep we basically Go crazy and the hardest thing about Poor sleep is that it kind of becomes a Catch-22 so if we have dis ease or Stress or imbalance in the body then That causes poor sleep so we can’t sleep As well but then when we don’t get Enough sleep based on what we just Talked about now we also don’t get the Rest we don’t process the information we Can’t heal the cells so it becomes a Vicious cycle and one of the reasons I Talk so much about stress and stress Responses is that it’s tied to Everything and it fits right in here as Well because once you have a stress a Stress response you make different
Hormones and one of them one of the Stress hormones is called cortisol and Cortisol will effectively shut down Melatonin and melatonin is the hormone That helps you sleep that regulates your Sleep cycles but anytime that you have Stress you increase cortisol and you Decrease melatonin so here is part of That vicious cycle and why we have to Control stress to get to the bottom of This so when we don’t sleep after about 18 to 24 hours of staying awake Obviously you will notice some fatigue But you also will see a decrease in Alertness you see a decrease in Concentration you’ll see a worsening in Reaction times in your quality of life Will start to go down as well you won’t Appreciate things you won’t have the Same sense of humor you can’t appreciate Funny things or the joy in life and if You wake up in the morning after less Than six hours of sleep then you will Experience a lot of these same things Now some of you may have noticed that a Lot of these things are similar to what Happens when you’re drunk from alcohol Intoxication so if we compare those Symptoms the decrease in performance From sleep deprivation to those of Intoxication and we look at the Alertness and the reaction time then After only 18 hours of staying awake you Have about the same performance as
Someone who has a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent and if you’re in Europe or A lot of other places they don’t measure Percent they measure per ml which is Thousands so that would be 0.5 per mil And this is already legally drunk in Most countries if you stay awake for 24 Hours now you double that level to 0.1 Percent or 1.0 per ML and now you’re Legally drunk in every country in the World and it is Criminal and Punishable by imprisonment in many Places now in many places like Sweden Where I’m from it’s even stricter than That so at 0.02 percent you will get fined at 0.03 You can lose your license or will lose Your license and at 0.1 it is a criminal Offense and you can get put in prison Whether there was an accident or not and The reason I bring this up is that Sweden who has really gone after this Has the lowest rate of traffic accidents And traffic deaths that are related to Alcohol and if we understand that mental Performance can be affected not just by Alcohol but also but Sleep Quality then Maybe we should take it a little bit More seriously maybe it is more to it Than just feeling a little bit off or at The very least maybe we should stop Treating it as a virtue to lose sleep so Many times I’ve heard people almost brag About how busy they are and how
Successful they are because they don’t Sleep well a lot of people on my channel And a lot of people coming to my clinic Are people have been financially Successful they created something but Then they wake up 20 years later with 12 Medications and type 2 diabetes and Realize that maybe their priorities were Just a little bit off if we’re sleep Deprived for even longer like 24 to 72 Hours now all these things start to get Worse we get into a bad mood we lose our Impulse control we have a tendency to be Aggressive we experience increasing Levels of anxiety and depression and if It goes even further now we can get Full-blown paranoia and delusions we can Get hallucinations and see things that Aren’t there here so the detrimental Impact on the suffering associated with This is strong enough that the United Nation designates intentional sleep Deprivation as a form of torture but Fortunately even if we let it go to the Point of paranoia and delusions it is Still fully reversible all we need is a Few good night’s sleep and we’re back to Normal but if you’re watching this and You’re really interested in Optimum Health like I know a lot of you are then The long-term effects is what you really Want to understand and if we don’t spend Enough time in the different stages of Quality sleep like stage 3 where we make
The delta waves then we also don’t get The growth hormone and we also don’t get The DNA repair one more thing we’re not Getting is we’re not getting the cleanup Of junk proteins like beta amyloid That’s associated with dementia and all Alzheimer’s so less time in Delta Sleep Means that we clean out less and these Beta amyloid plaques build up and this Is unfortunately one example where the Changes can become permanent and also Your immune system suffers tremendously After a single night of four hours of Sleep you have just shut down your Production of T cells your killer T cell Activity by about 70 percent and these Are the cells that go around cleaning up Mutated proteins mutated cells that can Turn into cancer and that Association is Strong enough that the World Health Organization has actually classified Sleep deprivation as well as nighttime Shift work as a probable carcinogen They’ve also found that sleep Deprivation is a strong predictor of Different types of cancer like colon Cancer prostate State cancer and breast Cancer now I know this is pretty heavy Stuff I don’t want you to freak out but I want you to be aware of this because Sleep is One requirement that the body Has and sleep deprivation is one form of Stress in addition to many of the other Forms of stresses so we need to
Understand it and know how to improve it But I’ll come back a little bit later to What you really need to look for as far As what you’re getting enough or not Sleep deprivation also causes some Metabolic changes so after a single Night of four to six hours of sleep we See a decrease in testosterone to the Point where a 40 year old male would Have about the same levels as a 50 year Old male so in a sense you get 10 years Older in that regard and what’s also Very well documented is that if you lose Some sleep there will be a significant Income increase in cortisol during the Following day and cortisol the main Purpose it’s a stress hormone it raises Blood sugar because blood sugar is your Emergency Fuel and when you raise blood Sugar on a chronic basis now you will Also raise insulin to respond to that Blood sugar and you promote insulin Resistance so for some people this might Drive them toward insulin resistance but For most it will probably just make it More difficult to reverse insulin Resistance and that is the single Strongest contributor to obesity type 2 Diabetes cardiovascular disease stroke And all of the other metabolic diseases And statistically they found that if you Get less than six hours of sleep on Average then your risk of death from Cardiovascular disease is up 200 percent
And your risk of a stroke is up 450 Percent one of the interesting things I Came across was the daylight savings Experiment so twice a year 1.6 billion People either lose an hour or gain an Hour and in the spring when we lose an Hour the following day we see a 24 Increase in heart attacks and I find That very interesting but we need to Understand cause and effect to put that In perspective and here’s how you need To think about that so we ended up with A bunch of heart attacks But did the daylight savings caused the Heart attacks not really the daylight Savings was the trigger right but a Healthy person doesn’t have a heart Attack because they lose an hour of Sleep but statistically if you have a Lot of people with some disease With some imbalance in their body and Then you add the trigger now Statistically you’re going to get an Increase another thing I saw I want to Comment real quick was that decreased Sleep is linked to cardiovascular Disease but then they also said that Increased or excess sleep was also Linked to cardiovascular disease and Here’s how we want to think about that That we have decreased sleep Leading to disease and then like we said Before we also have the reverse that This disease also results in less sleep
So here’s like this vicious cycle again And here we can argue that there is a Causative relationship because we can Measure certain things that happen or That are missing when people don’t get Their sleep but when it comes to excess Sleep I think we have to be careful with The idea of causation when we see Something linked to or associated with We have to ask ourselves is it the Disease causing the excess sleep or the Excess sleep causing the disease and I Believe that it is the disease causing The excess sleep that if there’s Something wrong with people then they Can’t generate enough energy or enough Interest to to be awake and productive And you know this if you’ve been sick if You have an infection like the worse you Feel the more you sleep and all animals Do the same when they’re sick they just Lay down and sleep until it goes over so If you have something wrong with you Then you probably will sleep more and The body does that to compensate but the Sleep is not causing any diseases so Should you worry about sleep absolutely Not because worry is counterproductive It shuts down all the healing and all The resources in the body but what you Should do is you should understand it And then you should do something about It as it relates to you and the first Thing you need to understand is that
Sleep is just another stress or rather Sleep deprivation is just another stress Just like pesticides and high blood Sugar and emotional stress and so force And we have all those other stresses we Talk about on this channel and how to do Something about it and here is one more Piece in the puzzle next thing is that We need to relate it to you and we need To understand that seven to eight hours Of recommended sleep is average it’s Like this famous bell curve that’s where Most people do okay but you need much More or much less and we’ll look at the Criterion just a little bit but when They do a study and this goes true for Basically any study is that if we were To put sleep on this axis and Performance on this axis then we would Expect that the more people sleep the Better they perform to a point or in the Reverse that the less people sleep the Less they perform and then we measure we Do this study on different people and we Find one person there and one person There and then we see them spread out in In different patterns And then that fits our Theory the best Fitting line but if you notice that this Person has a much better performance Than this person even though they’re Getting less sleep so whenever they Study something there’s going to be a Distribution there’s going to be
Variation between different people and That’s why we can’t just look at one Aspect and say this is the best food This is the best amount of sleep for Everybody because it doesn’t work like That and I’m sure there’s a lot of more Criteria you could look at but I just Want to quickly mention five things that You can use to evaluate if you’re Sleeping well enough if the amount of Sleep is good for you so first do you Fall asleep relatively quickly it Shouldn’t take hours to fall asleep you Don’t have to be asleep the moment your Head hits the pillow but it shouldn’t Take that many minutes So if you can fall asleep you get a Check mark next question is do you stay Asleep or do you toss and turn Throughout the night or if you wake up And go to the bathroom that’s not a Disaster but you should be able to fall Back asleep relatively quickly not toss And turn the rest of the night then next Do you wake up rested how do you feel When you wake up are you totally Grogging does it take you forever to get Into the day or are you ready to hit the Day next do you make enough energy do You feel energized do you feel like you Can do stuff throughout the day and Finally how is your focus and Concentration and like I said there’s Probably a lot more things that you can
Look at but it all comes down to how do You feel in the end if you can check off Most or all of these then you’re Probably okay whether you sleep being Four or five or six or seven or eight or Nine or ten hours and if you can’t check All the boxes then obviously you want to Do something about it but how do you fix It unfortunately there is no quick and Easy fix because these patterns these Sleep patterns the habits are ingrained In you and they can be changed but we Have to be patient and we have to Understand that the body works as a Whole there’s a lot of different things We need to address first of all it Involves rewiring the brain because Everything that you’re doing everything That’s a habit is a pattern in your Nervous system that we need to change Over time it’s like a super tanker has a Certain momentum we can’t just turn it On a dime the next thing that you need To do obviously is good sleeping habits First of all you have to Set off enough time to sleep if we can’t Do that obviously we really can’t do Much good and next thing we need to Understand what stress is and we need to Control stress stress is a learned Response it’s a habit pattern just like A lot of different things in the body And stress does many things it’s Responsible for these thoughts that just
Keep going in our mind the brain that Won’t shut off and it is also Responsible for raising stress hormones Like cortisol cortisol turns off the Sleep hormone melatonin and it makes a Lot of sense to do that the body is Smart it’s stress hormones are supposed To alert us to danger and then we don’t Want to be sleepy at the same time so Anytime we need to be alert we need to Shut off melatonin the problem of course Happens when we have chronic stress when That cortisol and those stress hormones Are chronically elevated we need to Learn what good food is because part of Reducing stress is stabilizing blood Sugar when we have a lot of blood sugar Swings from sugar and processed foods Now we will also have cortisol swings And excess cortisol so one of the best Ways to reduce cortisol and stabilize Mood and blood sugar is to eat real food With lots of fiber and fat and protein And very little sugar and starch another Huge piece is exercise exercise makes Everything work better in your body but Specifically in this case Exercise is one of the best ways to Control stress because when you exercise You drive information to your brain and The frontal lobe and that frontal lobe Lights up it increases the activity and It can inhibit and turn off those stress Responses if you enjoyed this video
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