Since it's Halloween we thought we'd scare the sh*t out of ourselves and go listen to the most frightening podcast we've ever heard.
Studies on the effect of lack of sleep have blown up the health industry over the last year or two and so sleep expert and neuroscientist, Dr. Matthew Walker, decided to watch the world burn as he unleashed the hell that lack of sleep causes.
If you're already depressed by the thought of Monday morning, this will cheer you up no end! Here are the cliff-notes...
* If you’re getting 6 hours of sleep or less, your time to physical exhaustion drops by up to 30%.
* If a surgeon is doing an important surgery on you and they had less than 6 hours sleep - the chances that they make a critical mistake, including death, goes up by 170%.
* The shorter your sleep on average, the shorter your life. Short sleep predicts all cause mortality!! Quote that to the "I'll sleep when I'm dead" person - because it will likely be next week.
* Insufficient sleep is the most significant lifestyle factor for determining whether or not you’ll develop Alzheimer’s Disease and is linked to bowel, prostate and breast cancer.
* Shift workers have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and cancer due to lack of sleep and consistent sleep patterns.
* Lack of sleep is a critical factor of the obesity epidemic.
* People sleeping 4-5 hours a night will on average eat 200-300 extra calories each day, which can lead to adding 10-15lbs on to your weight in just 12 months.
Have we scared you yet? No!? Okay, we'll carry on...
* Men who sleep 5-6 hours a night will have a level of testosterone 6-10 years their senior.
* Every 30 seconds, there is a car accident linked to lack of sleep. Drowsy driving kills more people on the roads than alcohol or drugs combined.
* Many children diagnosed with ADHD are just under slept.
* If you’re dieting, but not getting sufficient sleep, 70% of all the weight you lose will come from lean muscle, not fat.
* 1 in 20 medical residents will kill a patient due to a fatigue related error.
* After 20 hours of being awake, you are as physically and cognitively impaired as you would be if you were legally drunk.
We don't wish to end it on a Debbie-downer so here are some tips to help you sleep better at night.
How to create conditions where you can sleep better
* 7-9 hours is ideal.
* Dim the lights in your house 2-3 hours before bed.
* Black out light completely from your bedroom.
* Make sure the room is cool - your brain needs to drop its temperature 2-3 °F in order to sleep.
* Warm your hands and your feet to move the blood away from your core out to the surface or have a hot bath before bed.
* Don’t go to bed too full, and don’t go to bed too hungry.
* Don't look at a screen before bed, read a book.
We used to think that to live a healthy life it was all about diet then exercise, but study after study shows that sleep could now be the number one thing you should fix above all else.
You can watch the podcast here and it's on iTunes etc... Shout out to Podcast Notes for the show notes.
