Sleep and Performance - Yale Medicine Explains

Transcript

• 00:00- Hi, my name is Andre Zinchuk, and today we're gonna talk
• 00:03about the importance of sleep and what happens to our brain
• 00:07and our emotions when we don't get enough of it.
• 00:10And then, in cases where you can't get enough sleep
• 00:13for a short period of time, I'm gonna give you
• 00:15some strategies that you can use to help go through the day
• 00:20with as minimal disruption as possible.
• 00:25Every hour of sleep is like money in the bank,
• 00:28and so lack of sleep contributes to a lot of dysfunction.
• 00:33And because sleep is linked to almost every function
• 00:35of our body, from in the immune system to our
• 00:38neurocognitive system, it really has broad implications,
• 00:41and so we feel this most when it comes to our brain
• 00:45and how we interact with the world.
• 00:47A single night of sleep deprivation
• 00:48can impact our memory and our attention,
• 00:51and moreover, it can even create false memories.
• 00:54And so one of the easiest things to measure
• 00:56is the reaction time to specific stimulus,
• 00:58and so we know that people tend to make A, longer decisions,
• 01:03and B, those decisions tend to be more incorrect.
• 01:09But it's not just thinking that's affected
• 01:10by lack of sleep, it's also our emotions.
• 01:13As we all know, when we're sleep deprived,
• 01:14we tend to be more irritable and tend to feel sleepy,
• 01:17and so those two symptoms, over the long haul,
• 01:19can lead to things like depression and anxiety.
• 01:22And on top of this, we, when we are sleep deprived,
• 01:26have a hard time reading other people's emotions,
• 01:28so we have a harder time recognizing
• 01:30whether someone is stressed or not,
• 01:31whether someone's excited or not.
• 01:33And so all those things tend to impact our ability
• 01:35to interact with the world in a healthy, meaningful way.
• 01:41Similar to analogy of money in the bank,
• 01:43every day of sleep deprivation is like compounding interest
• 01:47on the loan that you took, and so the effects
• 01:50of sleep deprivation build up.
• 01:51So for example, if you take 20, 30 year old individuals
• 01:54and deprive them of sleep for, let's say, four to six hours
• 01:57a night and you do this for 14 days, what you'll notice
• 02:00is that with each single day of sleep deprivation,
• 02:04their reaction times get worse, their memory gets worse,
• 02:06their ability to do critical thinking gets worse,
• 02:09and after about seven days of sleep deprivation
• 02:13for four hours, it's kind of equivalent to not having slept
• 02:17for two days in a row.
• 02:21Turns out that what we perceive as irritability,
• 02:24lack of concentration, and other symptoms tends to actually
• 02:27level out after a few days of sleep deprivation.
• 02:30We sort of adapt to it.
• 02:31But if you actually do objective testing
• 02:34on performance and attention and reaction speed,
• 02:37those decrements continue to decline over time.
• 02:44For situations with short period sleep deprivation,
• 02:47maybe one or two nights where you can't get optimal sleep,
• 02:50there are a few strategies that you can do.
• 02:52Number one is be be kind to yourself.
• 02:54Don't get frustrated that you're not getting sleep.
• 02:57Number two is give yourself an opportunity
• 02:59to recover from sleep.
• 03:01Number three is take a cat nap.
• 03:0420 to 30 minutes can really go a long way
• 03:06to help you feel more refreshed during the day.
• 03:08And other strategies that can help you are being exposed
• 03:11to light during the day, using caffeine at strategic times,
• 03:15especially before 2 or 3:00 PM,
• 03:17and then also exercise and some yoga,
• 03:19mindfulness practices that can help us maintain
• 03:22alertness during the day.
• 03:24So what caffeine does is it blocks activity
• 03:27of something called adenosine, and adenosine
• 03:30is a body molecule that controls sleep propensity.
• 03:35So meaning, do we wanna sleep or do we not?
• 03:37And the way I think about it is sort of like,
• 03:39if you have an hourglass of sand,
• 03:41and the sand in the hourglass is adenosine.
• 03:44So when we wake up, the hourglass is flipped upside down
• 03:47and this adenosine starts to trickle down into our body
• 03:50and our brain to create our need for sleep.
• 03:53And so by the end of the night, all of that sand
• 03:56is at the bottom of the hourglass
• 03:57and we feel like we have to go to sleep.
• 04:00And so what caffeine does it actually blocks the activity
• 04:03of this adenosine molecule, and so it prevents us,
• 04:06for a short period of time, from feeling as sleepy
• 04:08as we would be otherwise.
• 04:10And so that's how it works, and if we use it strategically
• 04:13during the time that we feel most sleepy during the day,
• 04:16it can help us stay awake.
• 04:18Now, just like anything else in this world,
• 04:19there's nothing free, and caffeine can have
• 04:21some side effects, and probably the most common one
• 04:24is using too much of it at the wrong time.
• 04:26And so if we drink caffeine after 3 or 4:00 PM,
• 04:30it can actually delay our ability to fall asleep
• 04:33on the night of the recovery.
• 04:35And so for that reason, we don't recommend use of caffeine
• 04:39after 2 or 3:00 PM, and if you are gonna use it,
• 04:42use somewhere between 150 to 300 milligrams of caffeine.
• 04:45So that would be a regular coffee,
• 04:47or maybe a coffee and a half in a 12 ounce cup.
• 04:50In addition, for some people, caffeine is gonna be
• 04:53hard to handle, because caffeine is a stimulant,
• 04:56and also it stimulates heart rate and can promote anxiety,
• 04:59and so you really wanna make sure you start
• 05:01with a lower dosage before moving on to higher doses.
• 05:07So the bottom line is that sleep is really important,
• 05:10and when we get less than seven hours of sleep on average
• 05:13per night for an average human, we tend to have consequences
• 05:16for how we think and how we react to people around us.
• 05:20And so there are some strategies for dealing with that,
• 05:24and if you have chronic sleep deprivation,
• 05:26I would strongly encourage you to talk to your doctor
• 05:28or your sleep specialist to help you deal with that.