Full transcript
Intro
0:04Hey, guys. How'd you sleep last night?
0:06Were you out like a light as soon as your head hit the pillow?
0:09Or was it a bit more tossing and turning with those racing thoughts?
0:13We've all been there. Well, experts have been looking
0:15into the different stages of sleep for a really long time.
0:19And it turns out there actually might be more stages
0:21of sleep than we originally thought.
0:23That's what we're getting into in today's episode.
0:26We're finding out what happens to our bodies when we go to sleep,
0:30why some people find it harder than others to get to sleep,
0:33and some advice on how to get a better night's sleep as well.
0:36I'm Iqra Farooq and this is what in the world from the BBC World Service.
0:44I'm here with Caroline Steel,
0:46who has been looking into all of the science behind the sleep.
0:50She's the gal who's in the know.
0:52First off, Caroline, how did you sleep last night?
Why do we sleep differently?
0:56Not very well. It maybe took me, like an hour and a half to fall asleep.
1:00And then I woke up hot. So I opened the window.
1:03And then I got woken up by birds and then the bins being collected.
1:06Yeah, so not a disaster, but I'm not feeling my best.
1:10Oh, no. Sorry to hear that.
1:12How do you normally sleep? What kind of sleeper are you?
1:15I take a long time to fall asleep.
1:18And then if I wake up, I take a long time to fall back asleep.
1:21So I'd say, in general, I'm a bad sleeper,
1:24and I kind of feel like I'm constantly on a quest to, like,
1:27work out how to fall asleep better, but I'm not very good at it.
1:31I feel like I can pretty much lie my head down anywhere,
1:35and I'll get to sleep a bit of a bit of a skill.
1:37I don't mean to brag. I'm so jealous.
1:39Can you fall asleep on a train? That's what I'm always really jealous of.
1:42People who sort of put their head in their hands.
1:44Kind of embarrassing sometimes as well.
1:46Okay, so you're the opposite of me.
1:48If I want to fall asleep, I have to have this eye mask.
1:52I have to have earplugs as well. I take these with me everywhere I go,
1:56and I use a lamp to wake me up in the morning.
1:59That sort of mimics sunrise. And I feel like that maybe helps.
2:04Why is there such a difference sometimes.
2:06Then some people finding it much harder than others to get to sleep.
2:09So there's lots of different reasons. It's partly a genetic lottery.
2:13So there are thousands of different genes which influence how easily we do or don't fall asleep.
2:18So it's partly kind of the hand you're dealt when you're born.
2:21It's also down to feeling safe.
2:22So if you don't feel safe in that moment, it's really hard to fall asleep.
2:25So if you imagine trying to fall asleep with your front door wide open, that would be hard, right?
2:30But it's also down to how safe you felt as a child.
2:33Some research shows that if you felt unsafe or were neglected as a child,
2:38you're sort of you can become wired to be super alert, which is
2:40a really useful adaptation if you're growing up in an unsafe environment.
2:44But when you're older, you're safe, you're tired,
2:46and you just want to sleep well, it's not so helpful.
2:49And it's also down to our mental health.
2:51You know, if you're more anxious, if you've got sort of more
2:53racing thoughts, that's also been shown to keep you up at night.
2:57There is a lot of different factors affecting the quality of the sleep.
3:01I want to talk a little bit about the science behind all of this,
3:04and what actually happens to our bodies when we go to sleep.
3:06What do we know about that?
3:08Yeah. So it's it's quite hard to study sleep. We don't know everything.
Whats the science behind sleep?
3:12But we do know that there is a collection of brain cells,
3:15a collection of neurons in the hypothalamus, which is part of the brain
3:19that's sort of responsible for regulating our body function.
3:22And they're synchronized with the outside world.
3:25So they're synchronized with when it's light and dark outside.
3:28And during the day when it's light, they're more active.
3:31And they do things like increasing your heart rate,
3:33increasing your body temperature.
3:35And then at night they calm down a bit. They become less active,
3:39your heart rate decreases, your body temperature decreases,
3:42all sort of in preparation for you falling asleep.
3:45And then there's also this really interesting chemical called adenosine,
3:48which basically builds up in your brain as you're awake.
3:52As your brain cells are hard at work, they make adenosine.
3:55And adenosine sort of gives you this pressure and need to fall asleep.
4:00And luckily, once you do fall asleep,
4:03your brain sort of clears it and you wake up the next day feeling refreshed.
4:06But yeah, it's down to the buildup of adenosine and these incredible cells
4:09in your brain that are synchronized with the outside world.
4:12All right, well, we've been finding out what happens to the body when we don't get enough sleep.
4:16Jonathan Tam is a sleep doctor and expert.
What happens if you don’t get enough sleep?
4:19He sent us this. Let's have a listen. You don't sleep during the night.
4:22You can't process the things you've done during the day.
4:24You can't lay down the memories of the new things that you've done,
4:27and you may be more affected by any traumatic experiences that have happened.
4:32We know sleep is important for our immune system,
4:34so if you don't get it, you may not be able to throw off those pesky colds
4:37as easily, and you may not respond to vaccines as well.
4:41During the day, toxins can build up in our brain.
4:43These are removed during sleep, and there's some evidence to suggest
4:47that if they're not, we may be more at risk
4:49for conditions like Alzheimer's disease later in life.
4:53Quite apart from all of this, your brain knows just how important sleep is.
4:57And if you don't get it one night then the next day,
4:59it will make you feel exhausted. To encourage you to get more.
5:03I know that you recently went to a sleep lab, right?
5:06What happened there? What did you go through?
5:09So I went to a sleep lab in Cardiff
What was the sleep lab like?
5:12in Wales, which was really, really interesting.
5:14They sort of have all these rooms which are sort of designed for a perfect night's sleep.
5:19They've got no windows, so there's no light to wake you up.
5:22They're at the perfect temperature.
5:24So everything's sort of in favor of you falling asleep.
5:26Apart from the fact that they put electrodes
5:28on your scalp, which isn't super comfortable.
5:32So I sort of had a cap with electrodes attached to the skin
5:35on my scalp to monitor my brain as I was falling asleep.
5:39And so they're sort of looking for two things in particular.
5:42They're looking for alpha waves, which are a sign
5:45that you're conscious and aware. So when your alpha waves
5:47sort of disappear, it shows that you're falling asleep.
5:50And they're also looking for signs
5:52of rapid eye movement, which is one of the stages of sleep.
5:55So it can sort of tell you at what stage of sleep you are.
5:59Unfortunately, I didn't fall asleep.
6:01Oh, no. I was going to say you must have fallen asleep. You're in a sleep lab.
6:05I didn't fall asleep, which was really frustrating.
6:08I think the added pressure of being like, I'm in a sleep lab,
6:11I want to learn about my brain. When I'm asleep, I must fall asleep.
6:14I just sort of lay there really frustrated.
6:16Um, but I got to see my sort of brain graph afterwards, which was really interesting.
6:20I could see the alpha waves becoming more spaced out
6:24and sort of less frequent as I was sort of drifting off.
6:28But then I'd suddenly jolt back awake and the alpha waves would be back.
6:32Gosh.
6:33Yeah, it was a very frustrating, frustrating experience.
6:36Yeah. Oh my gosh.
6:38Um, but we heard about those sleep stages there with the REM stage as well.
What are the sleep stages?
6:42I wondered if you could talk me through that a little bit more,
6:44because there could be more sleep stages than we thought, right?
6:48Yeah. So it's sort of generally accepted that there are four stages of sleep.
6:52There's light sleep deeper sleep the deepest sleep, and then REM sleep.
6:57That's the rapid eye movement sleep, which is what happens
7:00when you're sort of dreaming and your eyes are darting all over the place,
7:03and we sort of cycle through those stages about once every 90 minutes.
7:08But I interviewed a scientist from the University of Oxford who's looked
7:11at people asleep in MRI scanners,
7:14and he thinks there could be as many as 19 different stages of sleep.
7:19Wow. Yeah. Which is really interesting.
7:20And he thinks we don't sort of necessarily go
7:22through them one after the other.
7:24So we don't go one, two, three, four, five, six. We could go stage four.
7:28Stage nine. Stage 12. Stage two.
7:31And that there's sort of a many different routes into sleep,
7:34but for now sort of more research needed.
7:36Mhm. And what if you enter a different stage
7:40at just a much later time than you normally would.
7:43Like for example, probably lots of listeners can relate
7:47to coming back from a night out at three a.m..
7:49Do we know what happens to the body then?
7:51Does it go into certain stage or what happens?
7:54Well, you're still if we're talking about the four stages of sleep,
7:57you're still sort of progress through the different stages.
8:00But if you have to wake up at a certain time,
8:03it might be that you end up sort of getting yanked out of sleep at, say,
8:06a really deep stage of sleep when you weren't really ready to wake up.
8:10So as well as getting enough sleep, it's great if you can wake up
8:14at the right point in your sleep cycle so you don't sort of feel that,
8:17you know, when your alarm goes off and it feels really jarring.
8:21Um, that can be avoided if you can sync up with your sleep cycle.
8:25And I know you're not an expert, but you've been through the journeys.
8:28You're still going through the journey.
What can I do to get to sleep?
8:30Do you have any advice for getting a good night's sleep? What's helped you?
8:34Oh, there's so many different things you can do. I guess it's kind of.
8:37It's worth working out what it is that's stopping you from falling asleep.
8:40So it could be your environment, which is great if you can change it.
8:44So you want to be in a dark room.
8:46So if you're not in a dark room, get an eye mask like me.
8:49You want to be in a quiet space. If it's not quiet,
8:52I would recommend using earplugs. You want it to be a good temperature,
8:55so about 19 degrees, which I know is really hard.
8:58If you're somewhere where it's hot and it's summer, I'm struggling with that
9:02at the moment, so I'm using a fan and leaving my window open.
9:05But with that comes extra noise, so it's difficult.
9:09If you're someone who's kept up by anxiety and racing thoughts,
9:13it's a good idea to try and do something before bed that will distract you
9:16from those. So the sort of research shows that, you know,
9:19doing things like reading a book that takes you into another world
9:22or chatting to a friend or something like that could really help.
9:25And then not doing things like drinking caffeine,
9:29that can make a huge difference. So caffeine is incredible.
9:32It blocks the receptors in our brains
9:34for adenosine, which is the chemical I mentioned before.
9:37That sort of builds up and makes us feel tired.
9:39So it can really help if you're feeling sort of symptoms of sleepiness,
9:43but then it can stop you falling asleep later.
9:45So avoiding things like caffeine, avoiding alcohol,
9:47which also disrupts your duration and quality of sleep as well.
9:51Okay, well let's bring in the expert on this.
9:53We've got some sleep tips for you all.
9:55You heard from Jonathan Tam, the sleep doctor, a little bit earlier.
9:58Let's bring him back and see what his tips are.
10:01We can help sleep by trying to help our body clock.
10:04You can do that by getting up at roughly the same time every day
10:07and seeking light when you do, but avoiding it later into the evenings.
10:13You can also get into trouble if you spend a lot of time in bed awake,
10:18at which point you might start to associate your bed, bedroom,
10:21even the act of trying to sleep with wakefulness.
10:25So if you are having trouble with your sleep, it's important only to go
10:28to bed when you start feeling sleepy to not have a rigid bedtime.
10:32And if you do find yourself lying in bed awake for long periods,
10:35then simply get up, go somewhere else,
10:37and do something else until you feel sleepy.
10:39If you're choosing to do other things in the bedroom
10:41like reading, watching television, even working.
10:45Try and take those things somewhere else and save the bedroom
10:47for sleep and intimacy with partners.
10:51But through all of this, it's important to recognize that sleep
10:54isn't something you can try to do. It's something that comes to you.
10:58And if it doesn't, well, sometimes you just have to give yourself a bit of slack and let it come to you.
11:04Now, a couple of bad nights here and there are part of life,
11:08but if you find yourself sleeping badly
11:11for more than three months, it's definitely time to see a doctor.
11:14So I know, you know, you went on this personal mission for this documentary.
11:19Has your sleep improved since then? Have you discovered more about your sleep?
Has your sleep improved?
11:22At least since then. Then.
11:23I've definitely discovered more about my sleep, and my sleep has improved,
11:27but not for probably the reason you'd think it would.
11:31So I every morning I wake up, I have a coffee,
11:34and then sort of throughout the day I'll have a cup of decaf coffees.
11:37I normally have a decaf coffee before bed as well.
11:39Um, and I went to replace my coffee pods a couple of weeks ago,
11:46and I realized that my decaf pod was sat a box of pods,
11:50was sat where my caffeinated pod should be,
11:53and my caffeinated pods were sat where my decaf pods should be.
11:57So for the last three months, and while making this program
12:00and while going to the sleep lab.
12:02I'd been waking up having a decaf coffee,
12:05wondering why I still felt awful.
12:07And then just before bed, drinking caffeine.
12:09So I'd say really pay attention to, to what coffee you're drinking.
12:14So yeah, since I fixed that, I'm sleeping much better.
12:17But not for any reason other than, you know,
12:20realizing I made a really stupid mistake before.
12:22Oh, well, at least you got there in the end.
12:23Got there in the end. But yeah, three months of bad sleep just due
12:26to accidentally putting my caffeinated pods in the wrong place.
12:29Oh my gosh, Caroline, thank you so much for coming on chatting all things sleep.
Outro
12:33I learned a lot and I hope you get some good sleep as well.
12:37Thank you. I'll try. I don't know about you guys,
12:39but I'm taking notes of all of those sleep tips. It's been so useful.
12:44What's helped you guys get a better night's sleep in the past?
12:47Comment below. We're going to read all of them. Like and subscribe too.
12:51You've been watching what in the world from the BBC World Service.
12:54I'm Iqra Farooq and we'll see you guys next time. Night.