SNORING
Britain is in the midst of a sleep crisis.
I've barely slept. I feel like an emotional wreck.
On average, we sleep two hours less a night compared with 50 years ago.
I'm walking wounded. It's just impossible to function.
Due to our busy lifestyles,
most of us don't know if we're suffering from a sleep problem
or if we're just plain tired.
Now, according to the British Sleep Council,
70% of us say we just don't get enough sleep.
In this series, we're going to see if science can help us all sleep better
with a team of sleep experts and specialists.
Go!
This is the problem you've got. This is the reason you're not sleeping with your wife.
Headed up by Dr Amir Khan.
I definitely see the effects on my patients of not getting enough sleep.
Poor sleep has been linked to obesity, Type-2 diabetes
and high blood pressure.
We'll take some of Britain's worst sleepers
and see if our experts can solve their problems.
From common complaints like snoring...
HEAVY SNORING
..to more extreme sleep disorders like night terrors.
I've woke up and my fingers have been stuck together with blood.
We'll also find out what this lack of sleep is doing to our bodies and brains
by sleep-depriving four of Britain's best sleepers.
This is going to be your home for the next 48 hours without sleep.
What effect does sleep deprivation have on our memory?
Just blind blank.
Everything's gone.
Exactly why tiredness causes fatal road accidents...
So, what's that? What's that?
Right. That's the micro-sleep.
And the link between lack of sleep and obesity.
You're going to gain weight, you're going to put on fat
and you're going to lose muscle.
We're gonna reveal the latest sleep science to sort out fact from fiction
and find out how we can all get that perfect night's sleep that we all dream of.
Meet Yvonne from Stafford.
Recently, she's developed a massive snoring problem.
Over the last two to three years,
my snoring has become unbelievable.
LOUD SNORING
My husband sleeps with massive ear plugs in every night
and even through them, he can hear me.
My ear plugs - industrial strength!
Heaven!
My son who's across the landing in the fourth bedroom can hear me
in his bedroom with his door closed.
This is Mum. She woke me up at five o'clock in the morning, snoring.
LOUD SNORING
SNORING CONTINUES
Even the dog hates me!
It's horrible! My family, husband, my dog and all my friends!
Yvonne is certainly not alone.
Snoring affects 30 million people in the UK.
The snoring's like a pneumatic drill.
We've teamed up with world-renowned sleep scientist Professor Colin Espie
from the University of Oxford.
Everyone snores a little bit, I think,
and the reason it happens is that when you fall asleep,
your musculature relaxes,
including the muscles around the throat and mouth.
LOUD SNORING
The air is still getting through, just rather noisily.
To find out what's causing Yvonne's problem,
Colin's sending her to his sleep research clinic in Oxford
to be wired up by Dr Rachel Sharman.
Good to see you. So tonight, you're here for your sleep assessment. Mm-hm.
So what we're going to be doing is sticking some sensors to your head,
to your face, to your chest and to your legs. OK.
And we're gonna record it by this little box here
that you wear on your stomach.
Alongside trying to work out the cause of her snoring,
Yvonne will also be monitored for any serious underlying health conditions
like sleep apnoea, where someone momentarily stops breathing.
This is the pulse oximeter.
It shines a little light through the fingernail
and from there it picks up heartbeat and also the oxygen in your blood.
Her breathing and snoring will also be recorded.
So this is quite possibly the most annoying.
This is a nasal cannula.
You breathe down into this and it picks up pressure,
the depth of force of your breath.
So I've actually got to sleep with that up my nose all night?
Yes, you do, I'm afraid.
I've only snored for four years
and I'm absolutely intrigued to find out why,
all of a sudden, you snore like a walrus, quite frankly!
Now, have a good night's sleep, or at least try! I'll try!
I'll see you in the morning. Thank you so much. Lovely to meet you.
Yvonne heads off to get some sleep
and give the scientists the data they need to work out the cause of her problem.
HEAVY SNORING
To find out what lack of sleep is doing to us and how we can combat it,
we're running a major experiment.
We've enlisted four of Britain's best sleepers.
Shop assistant Elli...
I've slept through a seven on the Richter Scale earthquake in Greece. Like, I deep sleep.
DJ Lloyd...
I'm a good sleeper when I am sleeping.
I think sleep can be a beautiful thing.
Model Stephanie...
I get the sleep someone should be getting.
If I was to get four hours sleep, it would be manageable for me.
But anything less than that is a no.
And engineer Natashane.
I'll sleep anywhere, any time, really!
We've brought them here to our incredibly luxurious
seven-million-pound Sleep HQ house
deep in the Oxfordshire countryside.
Equipped with everything for the perfect weekend getaway.
But for people who love their shut-eye, this will be no holiday!
For the next 48 hours, this is going to be home to our four super-sleepers.
But they're not gonna be allowed any sleep.
We're going to be putting them to the test, both psychologically and physically,
to find out the effects of sleep deprivation.
Throughout the experiment, experts will be on hand
in case anyone experiences serious problems.
Go.
On the first day, they're tested for baselines
to see how well their brains and bodies normally perform
after they've had a good night's sleep.
This is nasty!
Don't like it!
Our four volunteers make it through the night without falling asleep.
This is when it starts getting a bit hazy. Yeah.
I feel like five, though, 5:00am onwards,
it's just gonna have a spur of energy again.
Now they are properly sleep-deprived,
we can kick off the tests to measure how their bodies and brains have changed.
So, we're 24 hours in.
Time for our first experiment.
We're gonna put their brain functions to the test.
We all know that when we get tired,
it's not just our bodies that suffer. Our minds do, too.
So, what aspect of our brain declines first?
Helping us find out is Professor Jason Ellis,
Director of the Northumbria Centre for Sleep Research.
So, remember that there are other buttons down the bottom.
Ready? Ready.
First up... MACHINE: 'Get ready.'
..we're testing our volunteers' reactions.
'Go!'
The Bat It board will light up at random intervals
and they have to press the buttons over 30 seconds.
Jason's gonna tot up the scores at the end
and see how they compare to their baseline results.
Which we did 24 hours ago. Yeah, when they were nice and fresh.
'Lloyd scored 34 hits in his baseline test.'
'Time up.'
That's extraordinary!
43?!
I don't know how I managed that cos I'm literally feeling like I'm running on empty, now!
So that's just pure adrenaline.
He's using his adrenaline and really pumping up that effort,
just to get through the tasks.
'Time up.'
Elli, did you breathe? No!
Your timing was fast! That was the competitive streak! OK. All right. Full concentration.
I could fall asleep for 24 hours.
Despite feeling really tired, all the volunteers have done better than they did
on their baseline tests.
Remember what Elli talked about. She talked about all this energy.
She was working off adrenaline. Adrenaline, you see.
Lots of us who keep working, I'm sure it's the same for doctors, as well,
and for mothers who don't sleep and for people who work through the night.
It's adrenaline that keeps you going. Exactly.
Adrenaline is the stress hormone
triggered during our "fight or flight" response.
It fires you up with fast reactions, enabling you to battle danger or escape to safety.
But it's designed to help us in the short term.
Longer term, too much adrenaline can lead to health problems
such as high blood pressure and heart attacks.
'Time up.'
So, for now, our volunteers' reactions have survived intact.
But what about their memories?
They have a minute to memorise 20 items on a tray.
Jason then removes ten, and they have to remember which ones have been taken away.
So, Elli, if you can tell me what items are missing
and you've got a minute. OK. All right? Go!
Flowers, duck...
In their baseline tests, Elli and Natashane both spotted six missing items
and Stephanie and Lloyd spotted five.
Red ball...
Some flowers...
Do you want to stop? All I can hear is the Countdown theme tune in my head!
Just blind blank.
Everything's gone.
'Stephanie scored the same as her baseline.
'But the other three have all scored lower.'
So we can see the slight down trend in terms of their memory.
And that really is about the temporal lobe.
And this is one of the first areas to be affected by sleep deprivation.
The temporal lobe is part of the brain
responsible for processing sensory information
and where it's believed memories are stored.
As we get tired, individual neurons inside the temporal lobe slow down
affecting our ability to recall recent memories.
So what's happening when we sleep, then?
You're working out your memory
so you're determining "What do I need to remember from today?"
"And how do I turn that into long-term memory?"
So dementia, then, must be affected, then, by sleep?
There is a relationship between lack of sleep and risk for Alzheimer's and dementia.
Good quality sleep means you consolidate your memories
which is essential for learning new information
as well as better long-term brain health.
Eight, nine, double word. 80.
High score! Yes!
Coming up, Yvonne finds out just how bad her snoring is.
Wow!
No!
And we reveal the hidden cause of many deaths on the nation's roads.
That's a micro-sleep.
LOUD SNORING
Our super-snorer Yvonne has been driving her family mad
with her loud, persistent snoring.
She was wired up to try and find out what's causing the problem
and is about to get her diagnosis.
But what does SHE think is at the root of it?
HEAVY SNORING
I don't like to admit it. Over the last 18 months, my weight has crept up considerably.
But Yvonne suspects it's not just food causing her problem.
Having a drink makes me sleep better
but as I've been told by many people,
my snoring is considerably worse when I've had a drink.
I reckon that's what that professor is gonna tell me. "You're a fat cow. You need to lose weight."
Cheers!
It's time to find out if Yvonne's worst nightmares are correct.
Good morning.
She's come to meet Professor Colin Espie.
I'm extremely nervous! It's the big reveal!
Oh! No!
SNORING Oh, my God. Turn that off. That's horrendous!
LOUD SNORING
Maybe we should find a bit that's even worse... No! ..when you're on your back.
HEAVY SNORING
Using the data from the sensors attached to Yvonne's body,
Colin has pinpointed the cause of her snoring.
Right down at the bottom here,
significant snoring throughout the night. That's a lot!
There's a lot.
Extra weight around her neck is putting pressure on her airway,
especially when she's on her back.
This is all about muscle tone
and obviously when we get a little bit flabbier... Yeah.
Trying to be polite, aren't you? Trying to be polite.
It's just the muscle does not have the same tensile properties,
particularly around the neck. Around here, where my double chin is. You can say it!
You've got a lovely little double chin!
But the other thing that can reduce muscle tone a lot is alcohol.
Particularly during sleep. Yeah.
It makes us even more flaccid
and if that is what's happening, then it's even more likely that you would snore.
So Yvonne's suspicions were right.
It's the booze and her weight that are causing her snoring.
SNORING
The good news part of this... Is there any good news?
The good news is that you're not having what we call apnoeas very often
and that is a complete breathing pause. Right.
Where you just stop breathing.
Could that happen if my snoring gets worse?
Often complex snoring can develop into sleep apnoea
and that's a more serious condition.
Because then you're not getting sufficient oxygen round your system.
It's estimated nearly four million of us in the UK
suffer from sleep apnoea.
And many of us don't even know we have it.
Listen to your partner.
If they snore and they stop breathing for ten seconds or more,
get them to their GP.
Treatments include lifestyle changes, such as losing weight,
or wearing a ventilator mask as you sleep.
SNORING
So, what should Yvonne do to avoid getting sleep apnoea?
A good plan would be to review your exercise regime,
your dietary regime and the amount you're drinking.
So basically, I can't ever drink again and I've got to lose five stone!
Yeah. Welcome to the Ministry of No Fun!
I was just gonna say...
Well, it's for your health.
It's not the diagnosis Yvonne wanted,
but now she has a clear action plan.
Oh, my God.
For the first time in my life, I think I'm actually speechless!
It's a daunting prospect. I have got to try and curb this dreadful snoring.
Every year, we Brits spend over £50 million on sleep-aid products.
For snoring, one of the most popular are nasal strips.
Some small studies have found benefits in patients whose snoring was caused by a nasal problem.
But there have not been any robust large scale studies
and many experts say there is no good evidence that they work.
Another popular anti-snoring aid are mouth guards.
A study in 2004 recommended them for both people with sleep apnoea
and snoring caused by throat restriction.
Ones fitted by a dentist are most effective.
According to studies, they work for between a third and a half of people who try them.
Back at the sleep deprivation house,
for our four volunteers, the idea of any sleep at all
is a luxury right now.
Your body just wants you to close your eyes.
My eyes are so heavy.
Tired, sleepy, lethargic, a bit slow.
So we're now 29 hours in
and we're about to put them to the test,
this time behind the wheel of a car.
But fear not! Not a real car!
We've set up a driving simulator
and are going to see what effect no sleep has on their driving.
Hi, Elli. Welcome to the driving test.
Try to keep speed around 30 miles an hour.
Driver fatigue is thought to be a factor
in up to 20% of road accidents across the country.
Worse still, these type of crashes
are 50% more likely to result in death or serious injury.
A sleeping driver won't be able to swerve or brake
so the chances are the impact will happen at high speed.
Look - he's doing really shallow breaths, like that.
He's trying to keep himself awake.
Oh, my days.
Lloyd's swerved off the road, and it certainly gives him a shock.
Are you scared by it? I've literally driven this same kind of mind-set
and it's kind of scared me the damage I can cause to either other people or myself.
We're not only looking for quality of driving.
Our volunteers are also being monitored by a special feature
used by long distance lorry drivers
which uses state-of-the-art face-scanning technology
that can register micro sleeps,
tiny episodes of sleep lasting just a few seconds.
So, if they fall asleep, an alarm will sound.
So we're looking at the face, any movements within the eyes.
Any jumps like these, they're standard blinks.
But this is the one that we're really interested in,
because we should see a big jump
and that will be indicative of a micro sleep.
'Stephanie is next to drive the course.'
Oh, did you see that? She just closed her eyes and she skidded.
She obviously gave herself a bit of a shock.
She's really, really sleepy and really, really tired.
So what's that? What's that? Right. That's the micro sleep.
BEEPING
Stephanie has triggered the micro sleep alarm.
So, how long can people actually sleep for without knowing?
There's no real standard definition of micro sleeps,
but a good indicator is somewhere between five and 15 seconds.
You are kidding me! No!
15 seconds? Yep, 15 seconds.
'The combination of sleeplessness and driving
'is as serious as driving under the influence of alcohol.
'But the latest research suggests that there's a simple solution.'
OK. So what happens if you're on the motorway and you do feel tired?
Have some caffeine, pull over. Have a nap for about 20, 30 minutes.
What, after the caffeine? Yeah.
Because if you're that tired, you're gonna sleep through it anyway.
And what happens is, by the time you wake up,
that caffeine will be keeping you alert again.
But are daytime naps generally a good idea?
Napping's not too much of a problem as long as it's kept quite short.
The difficulty is if you nap for a long time, over 30 minutes,
it's going to detract from the sleep you get at night.
So if you have a 20-minute disco nap, that's a good thing? Yep.
For some people, though, a brief nap
is not going to solve their chronic sleep problem.
Meet Craig.
I've had a sleep condition for as long as I can remember.
I have what they call "night terrors".
Basically, I freak out, I lash out,
I can be quite aggressive in my sleep.
But have absolutely no recollection of what I've done.
Night terrors are very different from nightmares.
They're similar to sleep-walking,
except they can result in thrashing about or extreme panic.
What the person with night terror will experience is terror, fear.
And I mean proper scary stuff.
Night terrors are occurring during the deepest portion of sleep.
It's not like in a dream where you've got a narrative story.
You just get an image. Could be like somebody is there.
"Something's gonna happen. Something's gonna kill me."
A very frightening experience for both the individual and the partner.
I've woke up and my fingers have been stuck together with blood
where I've smashed my hand on the table.
My wife's said many, many times that if she's moved or made the slightest noise
I've yelped or freaked out or done something.
One of the times, he flipped over onto his knees,
grabbed me by the arm,
pulled me down the bed in no fun way,
looked me in the eye and said, "Don't worry, babe. We're in this together."
And it's just like... "Huh?"
This sleep issue is having a terrible effect on Craig's relationship
with his wife and daughter.
This is mine and my wife's room.
I sleep in here. My wife doesn't.
It's too awkward and too dangerous for me to share a bed with both of them
so we agreed that she'll sleep in there for the time being
and I stay in here.
So instead, I think a lot of couples,
that time where you get into bed and that would be when you do talk,
or when you wake up in the night.
It's been over a year, now, hasn't it, since we've... Nearly two. Yeah.
Yeah. Since we've had that.
Um, yeah...
It was... I suppose it's just a normal family thing to have that we're missing.
Just to be in a situation where
my wife would want to come and share a bed again
and I could, you know, have a cuddle with my daughter
and not worry about hurting her,
um, and just kind of have that normal family life.
Hey-hey!
Oh, baby!
Hi. Hi, Craig. Nice to meet you.
In order to find out what's causing Craig's night terrors,
we sent him to be wired up by Rachel at the Sleep Clinic.
So, Matthew, because Craig moves about a lot in his sleep,
we just need to make sure they are nice and flat and stuck on quite tight.
OK!
Rachel attaches sensors to Craig's head
which will measure his brainwaves while sleeping.
He's also attached with sensors on his arms and legs
to detect any movement he makes in the night.
These electrodes here are for picking up muscle twitches.
Are your legs kicking out and waking you up
and that's what's making you get up in the night
and ruin your sleep a little bit.
OK. So, that's everything we need. You're all wired up and ready for your sleep.
So I will take that, and go and have a good night's sleep! Thank you!
Time for Craig to try and get some shut-eye!
Coming up: Craig witnesses his own night terror.
Do you remember that at all? No.
And we discover the shocking links between lack of sleep and obesity.
You're going to gain weight, you're going to put on fat and you're going to lose muscle.
Go!
We're running an experiment to see what happens to us
when we're seriously sleep-deprived.
And helping some of Britain's worst sleepers
overcome their problems.
Earlier, Professor Espie met with our super-snorer Yvonne.
HEAVY SNORING
His advice to help her stop snoring
was to lose weight, exercise more and reduce her drinking.
So, how's she been getting on?
This has been in the garage for a very long time!
Come on, treadmill!
You're coming with me!
Just come here a sec. I need you to show me how to turn the treadmill on!
Take that. I'm not getting on it!
There you go. There you are. 6.2 calories.
So does that mean I can have... You can have a bag of crisps, now!
So the exercise regime has started - sort of!
And Yvonne's on a diet.
But Professor Espie has also advised her to reduce alcohol
as it causes her throat muscles to collapse onto her airway
leading to snoring.
Luckily, he didn't say, "Yvonne, you can't drink for a year."
Because I would have been mortified, then!
I'm going to be socialising,
so I can have my two glasses of wine that evening,
which is part of my diet.
And then I know I can have two or three gins, slim-line tonics.
I'm not looking for a miracle.
I don't want to be a size eight. Absolutely not.
I want to feel fitter,
I want to look a bit fitter,
I want my clothes to fit me.
And ultimately stop snoring!
Our other problem sleeper is Craig,
who goes to incredible lengths to try and stop his night terrors.
I have like a super, super-hot bath.
I boil myself in the bath, and then by the time I come out
I'm good for nothing other than literally flopping in bed, putting the fan on.
I've found that if I don't do that,
I get into bed and I'm really, really restless.
I get agitated, I get itchy.
Craig's wife has slept in another room for nearly two years,
so he's desperate to get to the root of his problem.
Two weeks ago, Craig was wired up with sensors.
Now, Professor Espie has analysed the data.
Do you want a look? Sure. OK.
So here we have...sound asleep.
You've got all the equipment on.
This is an event where you sat up in bed and you started looking around.
Do you remember that at all? No.
People don't usually remember these kinds of events
because they're occurring in deep sleep.
But what's happening here is you're having this arousal
and you go from there to here very quickly.
And that's why it can sometimes be distressing.
That's exactly what my wife describes.
She would move, you know, just ever so slightly
and I would scream like I'm being murdered or being attacked or something. Yes.
Deep sleep is a stage of sleep when we're most unconscious.
Our heart rate and breathing slows right down
and our muscles barely move.
But something is disrupting Craig's deep sleep.
If we look at it again,
right at the beginning, you would probably see that it starts with a kick.
Right.
You don't have a sleep problem.
You've got a motor problem that's expressing itself during sleep.
It turns out that Craig is suffering from a condition
called "periodic limb movement"
which affects around 4% of adults.
His leg rhythmically twitches every 20 to 40 seconds
when he's in deep sleep.
This then triggers his brain to respond by perceiving a threat
and so he has a night terror.
So that's the explanation here.
This is the reason you're not sleeping with your wife.
So we need to find a treatment that focuses on controlling that motor movement better.
The treatment that's usually used for this is a medical treatment, a drug treatment.
It's believed this disorder may be caused by a dopamine deficiency.
Dopamine is a hormone and neurotransmitter
that plays a part in our movements.
Medication can be taken that mimics dopamine,
so helping regulate and co-ordinate movement.
But Professor Espie also has a suggestion
to prevent Craig's problem happening in the first place.
We know the triggering factor is leg movement
but we know the context is deep sleep.
So the best preventative thing you can do is to make sure
you're well-slept, well-rested.
Yep. Give yourself permission.
Go home and say, "Professor Espie said I can go to bed as early as I like.
"Sleep as much as I like." Golden ticket! Yeah, yeah!
Alongside considering medication,
Craig needs to get more sleep generally.
Then his body will be less likely to go into deep sleep.
For most people, deep sleep is beneficial.
But in Craig's case, minimising it could help reduce his symptoms.
To have a diagnosis that really homes in on exactly what it is and why is great.
Back at the sleep deprivation house in Oxfordshire...
..our super-sleepers have been trying to keep active to ward off tiredness.
They've now been without sleep for 36 hours.
We want to see what effect lack of sleep has on what they choose to eat.
Research shows that lack of sleep is linked to obesity and diseases like Type 2 diabetes.
We've asked psychologist Professor Jane Ogden from Surrey University
to test our volunteers
to see how much they eat when they're tired.
If you are sleep deprived, it's going to impact on the way that you eat,
how much you eat and the food that you choose.
On the evening of Day One,
Jane took a baseline by laying out a buffet for our super-sleepers
and then recorded everything they ate.
I love scotch eggs. They're absolutely huge.
The recommended intake for one meal is approximately 600 calories,
but this lot all ate over 1,200 calories each.
They were definitely filling themselves up with calories.
They were definitely filling themselves up with sugar and fat.
It's possible our volunteers were already a bit under-slept on their first evening.
Recent research from 2018
shows that people who sleep less than seven hours a night
have a higher chance of becoming obese
than those who get over seven hours.
And that's because when we get tired,
two key hormones that regulate eating are disrupted.
Ghrelin stimulates your appetite
and leptin tells us when we're full.
As we get more tired,
we produce more ghrelin and less leptin
and that means we eat more.
But that is when we're just normally tired.
So we want to see how much this lot eat
after 36 hours of no sleep at all.
Jane's put out an identical buffet.
ELLI: Time for scotch eggs, guys!
They have free rein to eat what they like,
and don't know that they're being tested.
No, I don't really want...
Sometimes, you don't want to eat when you're that tired, do you?
She's not eating.
STEPHANIE: I think it's starting to make me feel more ill.
I thought that they'd possibly try and eat very fast
because they want to carb load and they want to keep going. Mm.
They've gone beyond keeping going now, actually,
and their biggest priority is just to get into bed and go to sleep. Yes.
And their bodies are telling them there's no longer any point.
I'm chewing with no emotion whatsoever
and I know it's gonna look hilarious.
When you're this sleep-deprived, you don't really know what meal you're eating.
These people don't really know what time of day it is any longer
so we've sat them down to eat, but they don't know what to have.
So, what about people at home with young kids,
what about shift workers,
what about people who work in a supermarket overnight,
what should they then be eating to get them through that?
Well, they should be eating meals.
Decide on the meal time, create a meal,
and sit down and have that meal,
and say, "This is a big enough meal to see me through."
But if you don't do that, you'll end up snacking all the time
and you'll get into a kind of vicious cycle
of feeling tired, being sleep-deprived,
eating the wrong things, being more sleep deprived
and it's just gonna exacerbate any problems you've got.
'This time around, our volunteers have eaten far fewer calories
'which surprised everybody on the day
'and goes against research.
'But they were beyond normal levels of tiredness.'
Someone else who's been battling with food
is super-snorer, Yvonne.
Five weeks into her diet, how is she getting on?
Well, happy Monday morning
and I'm on my way to work
feeling absolutely fabulous!
I have got on the scales this morning
and I have lost five pounds.
That is extremely good for me.
Coming up, Craig and Yvonne get their final analysis.
I think you've been a bit naughty! Have I?
And 37 hours into the sleep deprivation experiment,
our super-sleepers are showing the strain.
Pretty tough, to be honest. We're all just really digging deep, now.
LOUD SNORING
We've been helping some of Britain's worst sleepers
overcome their problems.
Craig has been suffering from night terrors.
I freak out, I lash out. I can be quite aggressive in my sleep.
After being wired up, we discovered it was caused by a condition
called "period limb movement disorder".
You don't have a sleep problem.
You've got a motor problem that's expressing itself during sleep.
He was advised to take medication and get more sleep.
Yeah, there's always lots to do.
Little ones to run after!
To try and tire myself out, I do things like wash the car.
You know, whizz round the house, go down the gym.
Even just doing housework can be therapeutic sometimes.
Where are you going?
Katie?
Come on. Ooh.
It's time for his final catch-up with Professor Espie.
Hi, Colin. Craig. Good to see you again. Have a seat. Thank you.
I did suggest you could try making sure you get plenty of sleep.
Yeah. I did like a week of just trying to get as much sleep as possible,
but truth be told, I ended up feeling more tired, for some reason.
It's interesting, though, that you could actually get that much more sleep,
when you allowed yourself to. Yeah.
One of the things that did really help me to sleep for longer
was that I started exercising closer to when I went to bed.
Just getting rid of some of the day's stress kind of really helped.
All of these things are helpful. They're not going to solve your particular sleep problem,
cos it's not caused by these things, but they're definitely gonna help.
Alongside more sleep, Craig also tried some of the medication Professor Espie recommended.
How did you get on with it? I had not the best reaction to it, to begin with,
so I had a particularly difficult night. I was having quite a few side effects.
I've stopped taking that and I need to go back and see what else is on the list that you recommended
that we can try. Yeah, it is about trying, and about experimenting.
There's three or four other drugs that can be tried in different doses.
It's about finding the right thing, so that may take a bit of time to get that right.
Yeah, I'm very optimistic.
I'll get there. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you.
So Craig is willing to try alternative medications
to get rid of his night terrors for once and for all.
I've got a plan. I guess it's just a matter of time before, fingers crossed,
I'll find the right medication.
I'm making progress and optimistic that I'll get there.
Alongside helping our bad sleepers sleep better...
..we've also been running an experiment,
taking four of Britain's best sleepers and depriving them of sleep.
Do you know, it's been incredible to watch all of this. Yes, totally.
And they have changed from the bubbly, kind of happy people they were
when they first came in.
You can see the strains of sleep deprivation in them.
I think the thing that's really struck me
was the driving test and the micro sleeps,
cos that has now terrified me. Yes.
After 37 hours without sleep,
our super-sleepers are now really suffering.
Pretty tough. I'll be honest. We're all just really digging deep, now.
I've been st-stuttering a lot more. It's brought out my stammer.
Their conversations go around sleep and wanting to sleep.
They're not talking about anything else, now.
I feel when I get back to the hotel, I don't think I'm going to sleep. You will.
Each time I yawn, it's like, "Were my eyes open?" I dunno!
Like all adults, our volunteers need at least seven hours sleep a night
to feel fully refreshed.
But is it true that as we get older, we need less sleep?
That's a myth that I've always heard.
That the older you get, you don't need sleep.
When you get to older adults,
parts of the brain that cover the drive to sleep and our body clock,
they start to break down a bit
and so we're more vulnerable to sleep problems when we get older.
And I think that's where some of the myth has come from,
that we need less sleep, because a lot of older adults are suffering from sleep problems.
So, when it comes to older people, then... Mm.
..and they are getting less sleep,
what can they do to get more sleep?
Well, keeping regularity of sleep schedules is actually really important.
If you're going to bed at the same time and you're waking up at the same time,
what that does is it keeps the system in place.
But even the best system won't work
if someone else in your house is keeping you up all night.
LOUD SNORING
Our super-snorer Yvonne has been making life miserable for her husband and her son.
This is mum. She woke me up at five o'clock in the morning snoring.
HEAVY SNORING
Eight weeks ago, she was advised to lose weight, take more exercise
and drink less alcohol.
And now it's time to meet with Professor Espie
to see if she's managed to do enough to stop snoring.
Hi, Yvonne. Good to see you again. Good to see you, as well.
Yeah? I've got lots of good news to tell you. Have you?
The treadmill's come out of the garage. I've joined a slimming club.
So, yeah, I feel much better.
How much weight have you lost?
I have lost seven pounds, which is half a stone.
Well done. Thank you. It's not easy.
I'm not gonna say I've given up the alcohol,
but drinking it in moderation.
I've Googled drinks with the less calories
and a good old gin and tonic's got far less calories than a glass of Prosecco
and I was the Prosecco queen!
I'm not concerned about the calorie content of alcohol... Mm.
..so much as the direct effect it has on your muscles. Yes.
Yvonne says she feels better. But has she had better quality sleep?
Over the last few weeks, she's been keeping a sleep diary
and wearing an AxoGraph, a watch monitoring her sleep.
Colin has analysed the data.
I think you've been a bit naughty. Have I? In what way?
You haven't worn the AxoGraph over the weekend.
I probably forgot to do it!
Maybe a little guilty pleasure over the weekend.
I didn't want you to notice!
I noticed, though!
You're getting anything between seven, seven and three-quarter-hour's sleep.
Seven and a half hours, to my mind, is quite a long... Long sleep. Good sleep. Good sleep.
Does this mean Yvonne's snoring has reduced?
My husband's managed probably four nights this week in the same bed as me.
My son had one of his football friends stay over.
He did come in and whispered,
"Mum, you never snored. Well done! I'm very proud of you."
Well done. Thank you so much for your advice. Pleasure. Thank you.
Dead chuffed that he's pleased with me.
The outcome isn't that I've completely stopped snoring,
but it is certainly a whole lot better than what it was.
I've not heard my mum snoring for like four days from my room.
She's doing amazing.
I'm very proud of myself. So now I'll go and have a big glass of wine to celebrate!
Next time, can new research help us cure a chronic insomniac?
I've been following the advice very closely
and the quality of sleep is the bit that really surprised me most.
Why late night gambling might be a bad idea.
When we're sleep-deprived, we're more likely to take risks.
I put all in. I lost everything.
And 38 hours into the experiment,
our super-sleepers hit breaking point.
I was literally just looking at a piece of chicken cos I swear it had a face on it.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media
SNORING
Britain is in the midst of a sleep crisis.
I've barely slept. I feel like an emotional wreck.
On average, we sleep two hours less a night compared with 50 years ago.
I'm walking wounded. It's just impossible to function.
Due to our busy lifestyles,
most of us don't know if we're suffering from a sleep problem
or if we're just plain tired.
Now, according to the British Sleep Council,
70% of us say we just don't get enough sleep.
In this series, we're going to see if science can help us all sleep better
with a team of sleep experts and specialists.
Go!
This is the problem that you've got. This is the reason you're not sleeping with yourwife.
Headed up by Dr Amir Khan.
I definitely see the effects on my patients of not getting enough sleep.
Poor sleep has been linked to obesity, Type 2 diabetes
and high blood pressure.
We'll take some of Britain's worst sleepers
and see if our experts can solve their problems.
From common complaints like snoring...
HEAVY SNORING
..to more extreme sleep disorders like night terrors.
I've woke up and my fingers have been stuck together with blood.
We'll also find out what this lack of sleep is doing to our bodies and brains
by sleep-depriving four of Britain's best sleepers.
This is going to be your home for the next 48 hours without sleep.
This time, we're testing whether lack of sleep
makes us more likely to gamble.
Wa-hey! My G!
And does it reduce our resistance to pain?
Aghh! Ooh!
And find out why poor sleep plays havoc with our emotions.
Mentally, it's been really hard.
There's been times I just felt like literally breaking down which is really strange forme.
We're gonna reveal the latest sleep science to sort out fact from fiction
and find out how we can all get that perfect night's sleep that we all dream of!
Meet Carla from Kettering.
For the last six years,
she's barely slept a night.
It's that frustrating that it just takes over my entire life.
You know, I've got no quality now at the minute
because I'm always tired.
The problem is that Carla just can't keep still.
I have this overwhelming adrenaline in my limbs,
my arms and my legs,
and I end up like moving my arms and my legs like this.
It feels like this adrenaline is gonna burst out of my skin.
So I have to move.
Carla suspects she might be suffering from a condition
called restless legs syndrome.
It's one of the UK's top sleep complaints,
affecting over 6.5 million of us,
where sufferers get painful, uncomfortable sensations
deep in their arms and legs.
For Carla, it's having a damaging effect on her relationship with her wife.
'The truth is that she wants to be in a separate bed to me at the minute.
'And that's not easy.'
I just want to be able to sleep like normal people.
We've teamed up with sleep expert Professor Colin Espie
from the University of Oxford.
Restless legs syndrome is not a psychological problem
in that sense.
And it's also not muscular.
People describe it being like "inside my bones".
And that can make it distressing.
To find out if she's got restless legs syndrome
Colin's sent her to his sleep research clinic in Oxford
to be wired up by Dr Rachel Sharman.
Nice to meet you finally!
Finally, yes!
We're going to do a polysomnography test tonight, a PSG recording.
And we're gonna be putting sensors on your face, on your hands,
under your nose, on your legs
and for you, on your arm.
And that's to look for what you're doing overnight.
If Carla is suffering from restless legs syndrome,
then it'll be her muscles that are affected.
We're gonna put these on your anterior tibialis muscles - calf muscles -
and what we're going to do is look to pick up any movements and small muscle twitches.
We're not looking for those big leg movements,
we're looking for tiny muscle twitches that might be giving you a little bit of pain.
Once wired up, Carla heads off to get some sleep.
Throughout the night, the equipment will collect data
which will hopefully get to the root of her sleep problem.
To find out what a lack of sleep does to us
and how we can combat it,
we're running a major experiment with four of Britain's best sleepers.
Shop assistant, Ellie....
I slept through a seven on the Richter scale earthquake in Greece. I deep sleep.
Model Steph...
Lack of sleep is gonna make me miserable!
When I'm around people and I'm tired, it's not a good... It's not a good thing!
DJ Lloyd...
I'm a good sleeper when I am sleeping. I think sleep can be a beautiful thing.
And engineer Natashane.
I can sleep anywhere, any time, really.
We've brought them here to our incredibly luxurious £7 million Sleep HQ house
deep in the Oxfordshire countryside...
..equipped with everything for the perfect weekend getaway.
Our super-sleepers are banned from sleeping for 48 hours.
Throughout the experiment, experts will be on hand
in case anyone experiences serious problems.
We're 38 hours into our sleep deprivation experiment
and our super-sleepers are utterly exhausted.
And thankfully, this is an exhaustion that most of us will never have to cope with.
And it's all in the name of science
to find out exactly what happens to us when we have little or no sleep.
So far, we've seen that our memory is one of the first things to be affected
by a lack of sleep.
Just blind blank.
Everything's gone.
But it's tiny micro-sleeps we're often not aware of
that make driving on little sleep so dangerous.
And that there's a strong link between overeating and poor sleep.
You're going to gain weight, you're going to put on fat and you're going to lose muscle.
Now we're testing something you wouldn't automatically associate
with lack of sleep.
How it affects risk-taking.
Research has shown that between the hours of 10:00pm and 3:00am,
we're more likely to place online bets.
Now, is this something to do with our avid night-time gambling obsession
or is it more to do with our sleep-deprived brains?
It's late in the evening, and psychologist Jason Ellis
has set up a mini casino.
What's interesting is studies have shown that when we're sleep-deprived
we're more likely to be impulsive,
and we're more likely to take risks.
In fact, research shows that prolonged lack of sleep
makes you twice as likely to indulge in risky behaviour
like drinking more alcohol, smoking and driving under the influence.
So, how will our group act now they're 38 hours without sleep?
Jason has set up a roulette wheel with a difference.
We've doctored it.
So what we've got here is two colours, so only two choices.
They've got red, of which there's less on the board, but the rewards are greater.
Black. There's more chance of getting a black
but the rewards aren't so great.
So, will our super-sleepers
go for the risky red or the safer black?
They're all given 100 chips and will play four rounds.
So if you were to put two chips on black, you'll get three back,
but if you put two on red,
you'll get six back.
So, red, less chance,
but bigger reward.
They first did this test 24 hours ago when fully slept.
Ellie was the biggest risk-taker
and won the game, whereas the others all played safe.
Jason will compare tonight's result against this baseline.
Right, Jason, can I start? Yep, absolutely.
Round one, and Steph, Natashane and Lloyd
all go for risky red.
Ellie plays safe and goes for black.
And this time, the risk-takers win.
Oh, yeah!
Right. Are we ready for round two?
Yeah! I promise I'll make it a better spin this time!
This time, three super-sleepers play it safe with black.
Natashane goes for red.
Red. Oh, look what I've just done!
Oh, you didn't, though.
Are we ready for round three? Yes. Go for it.
Lloyd places all his chips on black, a sure sign of risky behaviour.
Come on. Black. Black. Red, red, red.
Black!
Lloyd's gamble pays off.
That's 129!
It's gonna take me a while to count, so...
This time round, they do appear to be taking more risks.
And it's likely to be down to a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex
which controls decision-making and impulsiveness.
As we become more sleep-deprived,
the amount of sugar, or glucose,
reaching this part of the brain reduces,
slowing its activity.
This means we have less energy to think things through properly,
increasing risky behaviour.
It's the final round. Let's see if this last chance to win
brings out some high-risk gambling.
I love doing that!
Ellie's played safe up until now.
She puts all of her chips on risky red.
Red, red, red! Black!
Wa-hey! My G!
I told you I was hungry!
I put all in, so I lost everything.
So, disaster for Ellie.
But overall, how did our group's behaviour compare against their baseline?
They're betting bigger and harder this second time round.
Some of them are making decisions which are twice as much
in terms of the chips that they're putting down than they were previously.
Compared to their baseline levels,
Natashane, Stephanie and Lloyd
more than doubled the amount of chips they bet.
Clearly indicating an increase in risky behaviour.
What other decisions might people make when they're tired that they shouldn't be, really?
We're looking at decision-making here,
so it can affect every part of your life that's involved in decision-making. Home and work.
A recent online survey has revealed there's a 30% increase
in online shopping between the hours of midnight and 6:00am,
when we're most likely to have lowered inhibitions
and make poor decisions due to lack of sleep.
Studies also show that when we're tired,
we're more likely to give in to these impulsive desires
and buy things we don't need.
The advice is to leave purchasing decisions till the morning.
We've all heard the saying, "Sleep on it",
and that's usually referring to some decision or other.
And I guess this goes to show that's true.
Coming up, Carla is faced with the reality of her sleep problem.
So that's me, trying to calm my arms down, by the look of it.
And we reveal why lack of sleep can be painful!
Yes. Oh!
Our sleep specialists are helping some of Britain's worst sleepers.
Carla from Kettering suspects she's suffering from a debilitating neurological condition
called restless legs syndrome.
It's estimated that around 10% of the population suffer from it.
In extreme cases, it can disturb sleep every night
and lead to people being so sleep deprived
they feel unable to leave home and can even feel suicidal.
I just want to be able to sleep like normal people.
She's desperate for a solution.
So we wired her up for a night to find out what's going on.
Professor Colin Espie has assessed her data, and now it's time for the results.
Ideally, I'm looking for just someone to say,
"This is the condition that you have and this is what could potentially help you."
To have some sort of resolution to that
would be the ultimate, ultimate thing from today.
Life-changing.
And we're going to talk a bit about your sleep and what your test results showed. Yes.
Yes, fingers crossed there's something.
The first thing that you filled in - you probably remember this -
restless legs. Uh-huh.
Your rating scale, a lot of these ten items you scored as "severe" or "very severe". Mm-hm.
Like how often you get these symptoms in your arms and legs.
And in fact, your score on that test is 32
and a score of 31 to 40 is classified as very severe. Right.
And it seems that the problem is restless legs syndrome.
Colin has also analysed data from a specialist sleep monitor
Carla has been wearing at night.
It records sleep patterns and the amount of time spent awake.
So you've got a lot movement in your arms as well as your legs.
And you can see on this third night that there's so much movement going on
that it's a struggle to get to sleep that night.
Yeah, definitely. That is probably the sort of typical night
where I'm awake most of the night.
Then I've also seen nights when you clearly couldn't get to sleep in the first place. Yeah.
Um, and you were sitting up in bed.
Here's a night that you're just... Yeah.
..trying to pass away the time.
It's quarter past one in the morning.
And you can't get to sleep.
Carla eventually falls asleep, but after only an hour, she's up again.
So that's me trying to calm my arms down, by the look of it. Mm.
I punch my limbs a lot
and that, again, it's temporary. It doesn't last long.
Colin thinks he knows what might be causing her restless legs.
Movement data collected from the sensors placed on her muscles
shows something interesting.
As you can see here along the bottom
these marks here are muscle movements. Right.
And they're like jerky movements
in your legs and in your arms.
So as well as the restlessness that's occurring
which makes you feel uncomfortable and makes you feel you need to move around,
there is also this pattern of, in your sleep,
involuntary kicks or jerks that are happening.
The abnormal sensations associated with restless legs syndrome
can be caused by a number of factors.
For some, it's genetic,
or it can be a complication from conditions like anaemia.
Colin thinks Carla's is down to a chemical imbalance
but unfortunately he's had to rule out the most common.
Some people with these restless legs syndrome problems
have got iron deficiencies.
In your medical records, it has been tested and you were fine.
But Colin does think she has low levels of the hormone dopamine
which is produced in the brain.
It helps co-ordinate movement
by carrying messages between the brain and nerve cells in muscles.
If the amount of dopamine is reduced,
it can lead to involuntary movements like Carla's.
The usual treatment we use for this kind of condition
is something called a dopamine agonist which is quite a powerful medication.
The drug works by boosting the levels of dopamine in our system
so it should help reduce the symptoms of her restless legs syndrome.
Colin pretty much validated the reason why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling
is because I have this condition.
And he is willing to help me in trying to find a resolution for that
so I feel really positive.
Back at our sleep deprivation experiment,
our super-sleepers have now gone without any shut-eye for 42 hours.
There's less than six hours to go now,
and we've caught some of them almost nodding off.
So we're gonna do something that should shake them back to their senses.
We're gonna test their pain thresholds.
Studies suggest that being tired reduces our ability to cope with pain.
One of the chief complaints people come and see me about as a GP is pain.
Specifically chronic pain that's been there for three months or more.
And we know that pain and sleep have a very complex relationship.
So, does our threshold to withstand pain
decrease when we're sleep-deprived?
Amir wants to put this to the test using a clinical measure
called the cold pressor test.
The group have to place their hand in a bucket of ice and water
and keep it in as long as they can for up to a maximum of two minutes.
Stephanie, do you think being tired might affect how this works for you?
Of course. There's a reason why I don't go out at night in a mini skirt and a crop top
cos I don't like feeling the cold!
This is going totally against my will.
Let's see how you do. We'll do it one at a time.
Go!
36 hours ago,
Amir did the same test with the group
when they were fully slept.
He'll compare tonight's results against this baseline level.
First up is Ellie.
One, two, three, go.
How long is the freezing time?
It's just until it feels uncomfortable,
and you want to take your hand out.
OK.
That was so horrible. So horrible! Yeah.
The pain was far too much for her.
In her tired state, she only managed 35 seconds.
That's ten seconds less than when she was fully slept.
You're not asleep, are you, Lloyd? No!
Lloyd and Steph both managed to last the full two minutes.
That's two minutes, thank you!
And you can come out, now. That's two minutes.
Well done, Steph!
The same as their baseline.
Last up, it's Natashane.
Go!
Bringing back bad memories? Very bad memories!
How does it feel? Terrible.
In what way? Like Christmassy cold!
Yeah. Really cold! Fair enough.
This is why I don't go to the beach in the UK!
Oh, my gosh. That was quick.
Yeah.
Natashane lasts the shortest of all.
Natashane, how about yourself? What do you think the difference was?
Uh, maybe ten, 15 seconds probably? Yeah. Yeah.
Well, actually, you were 35 seconds shorter this time
than you were... Yeah. ..the first time. All hope is lost!
It's... It's quite a difference, isn't it? Yeah.
The pain started to creep up my hand much quicker the second time that I did it.
So I'm like, "No. Get my hand out. That's it. I'm done. I'm cooked."
As this test demonstrates, we all have very different pain thresholds.
Lloyd and Steph's remained the same as their baseline of two minutes.
However, Ellie and Natashane's pain threshold
decreased by an average of around 40%.
Our findings are backed up by recent research
that suggests sleep loss in most people
decreases their pain threshold by around 25%.
As we get more sleep-deprived,
mechanisms in our brain slow down
and we produce less dopamine.
That's our body's natural painkiller
so the less of it we produce, the more pain we feel.
So the hormone dopamine plays a key role in controlling pain
as well as movement.
But producing less of it is not the only reason
we feel pain more when we're tired.
Pain is processed in a part of the brain called the parietal lobe.
Its activity increases when we feel pain.
When sleep-deprived, activity in the parietal lobe is far greater.
So pain and lack of sleep are linked.
In fact, a recent study found that adults who sleep less than seven hours a night
are more likely to have a painful chronic health condition
such as arthritis and back pain
which is of particular relevance to Amir and his patients.
Often, when you're in pain, you can't sleep
and when you're awake at night you're worrying about that pain as well
and it's a bit of a vicious cycle.
So if I can help you with your sleep,
it may go some way in helping with your pain.
Most of us aren't getting anywhere near
the recommended eight hours of sleep a night.
And some use the weekends to binge-sleep in order to catch up
on those lost Zeds.
But does it really work?
Professor Jason Ellis from Northumbria University
is a psychologist who specialises in sleep.
On a personal note, I used to wake up at 3:30 to do an early morning job. Yes.
So I then would binge-sleep on a Friday night
and lie in on a Saturday and always felt awful. Yes.
The reason you felt awful is because your body's already got into that rhythm in the week
and then suddenly you broke the rhythm.
You played around with the body clock and the drive to sleep.
So it doesn't know where it wants to be.
Keeping a regular schedule is really important to keeping those feelings at bay.
Sticking to a regular sleep schedule is something some of us can only dream of.
Insomnia is the most common sleep problem in the UK,
affecting over one third of the population.
Peter is one of them.
For about 20 years now I've really suffered with sleep issues.
It goes back to round about 2000, 2001.
I went through a divorce which was quite harrowing at the time, mentally.
Peter has a high pressure job as a sales director
and regularly finds himself sleeping for only two to four hours a night.
Like any sales job, there are daily targets, monthly targets to achieve.
By day, you're dreaming about a number and to achieve that number.
And at night?
And at night, as well.
Peter's insomnia is not just affecting his work.
It's also affecting his family life.
I mean it's maybe not nice to say,
but when Peter would come home and say he's tired,
the impact would be yes, on everybody.
I'll see my son desperately trying to put his shoes on
but I'm thinking, "I need to put the shoes on cos it'll get to the result quicker",
but he needs to learn how to put his shoes on
so as I get more fatigued, I find myself having less patience.
Many of us have times when we don't sleep well,
but that doesn't mean we fit the clinical definition of insomnia.
Insomnia disorder is when you have a persistent problem with your sleep.
Getting to sleep, staying asleep, maybe both,
for three or more nights a week for months and months.
And clinically, often years and years
and it's affecting you during the day.
Usually not feeling well, mood-wise, maybe physically.
Peter definitely needs help
so over the next two weeks,
sleep expert Professor Colin Espie and his team
have fitted him with a sleep monitor to assess his condition.
Coming up: emotions are running high with our super-sleepers.
Mentally, it's been really hard.
There's been times I've actually just felt like breaking down, which is really strange for me.
I'm usually far more mentally strong.
And Colin has a radical solution for Peter's insomnia.
You go to be a bit later.
The idea is to compress your sleep period
so that it squeezes out the wakefulness.
We're trying to help people suffering from some of the most common sleep problems inthe UK.
Peter has rarely had a proper night's sleep in over 20 years.
Over that time, he's tried almost everything to fix his sleep.
I've tried all the various things in terms of not drinking caffeine drinks after a settime.
I take regular exercise, I eat healthily,
I don't drink excess alcohol, I don't take drugs of any sorts.
So, yeah, the why is why I'm here.
Peter's meeting sleep expert Professor Colin Espie.
He's analysed his sleep data and it's time for the results.
So, let's get into looking at some of the data from your sleep reports.
So when we look at the score on that sleep condition indicator,
we see it's a score of a total of ten.
A score anywhere less than 16 indicates probable insomnia.
In other words, your sleep is not in good condition.
But it's the frequency of Peter's bad sleep that is of particular concern to Colin.
We can see that you've had a difficulty three nights a week at least.
We can see the difficulty has been going on for more than a year.
So, Peter shows all the classic signs of chronic insomnia.
And Colin has one final piece of evidence to confirm this diagnosis
gathered from the sleep monitor Peter has been wearing in bed.
We see these periods of activity
which probably represent at best restlessness. OK.
And at worst, you actually waking up again and again and again.
And your sleep efficiency is at 83.7%.
What that means is that of your night,
you slept an estimated 83-plus, 84% of the time.
But a good sleeper will typically sleep, say, 90, 95% of the night.
Sleep efficiency is the percentage of time we spend in bed actually asleep.
To overcome his insomnia,
Peter needs to get his sleep efficiency above 90%.
We need to put sleep back in control. Sleep has to be king.
And the way we do that, two strategies to suggest that you can follow
that will do that, it will be effective,
if you follow them, but they're not easy.
The first suggestion sounds very unorthodox.
Peter actually has to spend less time in bed.
It's a technique called sleep restriction.
Now, you go to bed a bit later, and/or getting up a bit earlier.
The idea is to compress your sleep period
so that it squeezes out the wakefulness
and then encourages sleep to dominate quicker.
OK. OK.
But that's counter-intuitive.
It is counter-intuitive, but it puts pressure on sleep to recover.
Studies show that sleep restriction significantly reduces fatigue
and increases the efficiency and quality of your sleep.
Colin's second strategy is as bizarre-sounding as the first.
You say, "I'm going to bed tonight later than usual.
"And I'm just gonna put the light out and lie and try and stay awake a little bit longer."
And each time you feel your eyes closing, as you will,
you say to yourself, "No, just another half a minute."
And resist sleep gently and you will fall asleep,
when you're trying to stay awake.
So Peter's treatment plan is to restrict his sleep and stay awake
even when he feels tired.
And finally, he'll be doing an online cognitive behaviour therapy course
to help him change any negative thoughts he has about his sleep.
'For him to suggest that this could be something that would result in some better nights sleep'
after suffering from this for more than 20 years, I'm flabbergasted.
Every year, we Brits spend over £50 million on sleep aid products.
For insomnia, the most popular are aromatherapeutic products
such as lavender or valerian.
A review of the evidence found that lavender oil may be of moderate benefit
to aiding sleep.
But this should be viewed with caution as larger trials still need to be carried out.
Other popular products are over-the-counter tablets
such as Nytol or Sleepeaze.
They contain a chemical called diphenhydramine,
an antihistamine mainly used to treat allergies
but can induce drowsiness.
However, prolonged use can quickly lead to a tolerance to the sedative effect,
making it less effective.
We're also following Carla, who suffers from restless legs syndrome.
Professor Colin Espie decided that her best treatment option
would be a powerful prescription medicine.
But she's back to see Colin at his clinic
because a big decision in her life means she has to rethink her treatment plan.
I know there's quite a lot going on in your life at the moment.
We are trying for a baby
so obviously the medication wouldn't necessarily work very well with that.
Colin had prescribed her a powerful drug called a dopamine agonist.
But it's not recommended for people going through fertility treatment.
I mean, not all medications for everything are troublesome during pregnancy. Yes.
But these particular medications do carry some risk and I think that's the correct decision.
Obviously the priority is not to complicate any pregnancy with medication.
So, in the absence of medication
Colin has prescribed her a range of relaxation techniques
such as breathing exercises and mindfulness
as he believes Carla's sleep problems have been made worse by her anxiety about her condition.
They won't cure this problem,
but they'll help you manage the situation a little bit better, I think. Yes.
And if you're going to bed a bit tense at night
then you will have a little bit of difficulty getting to sleep.
Yeah. I'm really pleased.
Back at home, Carla finds the relaxation techniques helpful.
Things have improved much, much better now.
They are so much better.
I've been given some meditation-type techniques so when I get into bed
I'm able to sort of try and relax as much as I can
so that I can get a decent night's sleep and not wake up like the Crazy Frog!
So, Carla has a plan to help her sleep in the short term
and is committed to taking medication
once she's completed IVF treatment.
Back in Oxford, we're 46 hours into our sleep deprivation experiment
and it's starting to take its toll on our super-sleepers' emotions.
Of all of our volunteers, I think Lloyd is the one who's been affected most.
So, as we would expect,
there's gonna be highs and lows involved.
And Lloyd had a particularly difficult morning. He was quite low.
He began to withdraw and distance himself from the rest of the group.
Today was easily the worst day of the two.
Mentally, it's been really hard. There's been times where I felt like literally breakingdown,
which is really strange for me.
I'm usually far more mentally strong.
Psychologist Professor Jason Ellis
became concerned with Lloyd's change in behaviour.
And this morning, for the first time ever in doing any task,
I was genuinely contemplating just packing it in, which is honestly a first for me.
Anyone who knows me knows that I give everything 110%.
But after a long talk with Jason and the group,
Lloyd decided he wanted to try and continue.
But yeah, it's been such a weird, weird, weird experience!
Like next level strange!
The others are also feeling the strain on their emotions, too.
I need to be on my own for a little bit to give myself a pep talk in the bathroom.
I've noticed that the lows have been longer
and the high points where I get a little burst of energy have been much shorter.
Why, when we're so tired,
do our emotions go into overdrive?
What we've seen is that both positive and negative emotions have sky-rocketed.
Now, the reason for that is because there's something in the brain called the amygdala.
The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for controlling our emotions,
such as fear and pleasure.
Even one night of sleep deprivation, let alone two,
is gonna result in an overdrive in the amygdala.
It goes into overaction
and therefore heightens every emotion that we've got.
So, what's the best sleep for your mind?
Sleep is made up of two main bits.
Slow-wave sleep which is good for the body,
REM, which is great for the mind.
What happens over the course of the night
is you'll have the most of your slow-wave sleep happen in the first third of the night.
Then the last third of the night is when you capitalise on REM.
'To ensure you maximise REM sleep,
'try and get to bed at the same time each night
'and allow for at least seven hours to pass before waking up.
'Over time, your body should acclimatise to the schedule.
'And you'll get far more mind-benefiting REM sleep.'
Someone who can only dream of some refreshing deep sleep
is insomniac Peter.
He's been trying to fix his problem by following Professor Espie's counter-intuitive advice.
Which was for him to try and stay awake!
Essentially, last night, I went to bed.
I was extremely tired. I was yawning for a good hour before going to bed.
Ready for my sleep. And I forced myself to keep my eyes open
and, lo and behold, eventually I fell asleep.
So as difficult as it is to stay awake at night,
it's actually showing early signs that it's a workable solution.
Coming up, we find out what effect 47 hours of sleep deprivation
is having on our super-sleepers' brains.
I was literally just looking at a piece of chicken cos I swear it had a face on it!
And has Colin managed to fix Peter's insomnia?
I just want to show you here a comparison from when you started the programme.
And you'll see, I think, a bit of a difference.
Over the past two days, we've been running an experiment
where we've taken four of the nation's best sleepers
and deprived them of sleep.
They're now 47 hours in and really beginning to feel it!
LLOYD: Stand up and do star jumps. I ain't got the energy for that!
Total exhaustion.
Like I've really, really, really, really got to think about every word that I say!
Only 22 hours.
I was literally just looking at a piece of chicken cos I swear it had a face on it!
Shutter? Ah. That makes sense!
Lack of sleep is obviously having a very strange effect on their minds.
So we're going to put them to the test one last time.
We're going to see how sleep deprivation has affected their brain function.
COMPUTER: Get ready.
When they last did this 24 hours ago,
they did surprisingly well in the reaction test.
That's extraordinary. 43?
I don't know how I managed that, because I'm feeling I'm running on empty, now.
But Jason had a simple explanation.
He's using his adrenaline and really pumping up that effort
just to get through the tasks.
However, their memory did start to deteriorate.
Just blind blank.
Everything's gone.
So, how will they fare now,
47 hours into the experiment?
COMPUTER: Get ready.
Go!
First up, reaction time. How quickly can they hit the flashing buttons
in 30 seconds?
When they did this 36 hours ago,
Steph came last with 22 hits
and Natashane topped the board with 36.
COMPUTER: Time up.
My reactions are slow.
And now memory.
Jason shows them a tray of 20 items which they have a minute to memorise.
Are you ready? Yep.
OK.
He then takes off ten items and they have to remember what's missing.
There is so much wrong on here.
Can't think of any more. You're done? Yeah.
That's all I can actually remember.
OK.
Jason has calculated the results.
How did they do with the reaction time?
Remember they seemed to all get better at that second point? Yes, that's right.
Well, we're seeing a curve. They started out, they got better,
presumably because of the adrenaline.
And now they're all cascading down.
47 hours in, there's no adrenaline left. There's nothing to play with.
And the change in their memory abilities is even more stark.
JASON: 'Now, this was fascinating,
'because three of our four contributors gave up.'
Three gave up? They gave up.
They were so competitive, so determined to beat each other,
to beat themselves.
What changed? Again, they've run out of resources.
And when we talk about the brain and its impact from sleep deprivation,
what we're seeing is, the longer the sleep deprivation goes on,
the more of an impact, the more slowing there will be in their cognition,
in their memory, in their reaction times.
And there's nothing they can do to override that feeling?
The only thing they can do is sleep.
Long-term insomniac Peter has also forgotten what it feels like to have a good night'ssleep.
How having more sleep would impact me or help me, I really don't know.
Would it provide me with more energy, would I be less stressed?
I don't know. I've kind of forgot... I've genuinely forgotten
what it's like to have regularly, night after night, of good quality sleep.
Two months ago, Colin gave him a treatment plan
which comprised of some unorthodox solutions.
He had to restrict his sleep.
He also had to stay awake even when he felt tired
and do an online cognitive behavioural therapy course.
He's back to meet Professor Colin Espie from the University of Oxford
to see if it's worked.
So, how's your sleep? The tips that you gave me
has had a dramatic improvement on my sleep,
particularly the quality of sleep.
It's not the easiest thing to do, right?
To be fair, the staying awake at night
when I was literally on my coat-tails towards the end of the day
is the bit that I struggled with mostly.
But actually, in doing so,
allowed me to get a far deeper sleep, quicker. Yes.
Making me feel a lot more refreshed when I woke up.
Colin also asked Peter to complete questionnaires throughout.
After analysing the data, he's calculated something called his sleep condition score.
A value lower than 16 indicates an insomnia disorder.
I just want to show you here a comparison on this same measure
when you started the programme.
And you'll see, I think, a bit of a difference.
Your score for sleep condition was ten at the beginning.
It's actually now 21. That's incredible.
A score of 21 means Peter's sleep has improved so much
that he's no longer clinically classified as having insomnia.
I realise now these are skills and tips that I'll be able to take forward for the rest ofmy life.
Right. Long may it continue! Absolutely!
Absolutely.
'To be able to go to sleep and fall asleep quickly
'and get into a deep sleep is something that I haven't done for more than 20 years.
'So that in itself is a stand-out moment.'
In fact, my wife and I have been together for 15 or so years
and between us, we've never really known me to be like this.
So it's improving life in general.
For Peter, sleep restrictions of five hours per night
has improved the quality of his sleep.
But what is the least amount of sleep we actually need?
What we do know is that four hours,
less than that, we start to see damage start to occur.
What sort of damage? Our immune system can get damaged.
It also affects how we think and how we feel.
And it also puts a lot of pressure on the body, as well.
Let's think about what sleep does.
Any damage that we've had during the day,
that's gonna get fixed at night.
And so without that level of sleep,
those things are going to carry on being damaged,
and that's going to lead on to the next day and the next day.
Over time, this is why we see a relationship between not enough sleep and poor health.
We've reached the final few minutes of our 48-hour sleep-deprivation experiment.
How do our super-sleepers feel about their experience?
I genuinely think it's totally changed my outlook on sleep and the importance. Really?
Yeah. The importance of it.
I'm falling apart, now. Doing this to myself.
Lack of sleep, there's no concentration. Mood swings.
You're hungry, then you're not hungry. You're tired, then you're not tired.
At one point I was like calling Lloyd "Larry" or something like that!
It's eight o'clock. We've done it! You've done it!
Wow! Take off your mic, rip off your alarm!
And guess what? You can sleep!
Our four super-sleepers have put up a good fight
against the effects of extreme fatigue.
But if has affected everything from their memories, eating habits,
tolerance to pain, risk-taking and their mood.
Scientists are learning more and more about how wide-ranging the effects of being tired are
from every aspect of our behaviour
to our nerves and our hormones.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media