SLEEP | What happens when Joe Wicks drastically reduces his sleep? Featuring The Sleep Scientist, Dr Sophie Bostock

Health or Hype

In this episode of Health or Hype, Joe Wicks undergoes a three-day experiment where he restricts his sleep to just five hours per night. Joi

Key takeaways

• Sleep deprivation increases ghrelin levels (hunger) and decreases leptine levels (fullness), leading to increased cravings for high-calorie foods.
• Lack of sleep heightens the brain's sensitivity to threats, which can manifest as increased anxiety and irritability.

Main topics

• The impact of sleep deprivation on appetite
• Sleep stages: Light, Deep, and REM

Notable quotes

Our sleep need is wired into our DNA.

Conclusion

Prioritizing consistent sleep schedules and morning light exposure ser

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi everyone, it's Joe Wicks here with another episode of Health or Hype from Boopa. I am so tired right now, but this is an important episode. This is all about sleep, and tell you what, I have not had enough this week. Coming up on Health or Hype... Speaker 1 (0:16) This is in 13 and a half hours of screen time. That's savage. Speaker 3 (0:20) Well, there's a few interesting elements to your sleep data, Joe. Speaker 1 (0:24) Come on, you're stronger than you think. I can do hard things. I can do hard things! Speaker 2 (0:29) Hello and welcome everyone. Now I've spent more than a decade trying to help people live healthier, happier lives with diets and lifestyle changes that really work in the real world. So this week I'm looking at sleep. It's something we do every day and yet sometimes getting a good night's sleep is one of the hardest things to do and the downsides of not sleeping enough can be massive. So I want to find out more about what's actually happening when we sleep, how much rest do we need and how to get a good night's shut-eye. And a quick reminder, that as well as just listening to this podcast, you can also watch it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Let's go. To talk about all of this with me today is Dr. Sophie Bostock, sometimes known as the sleep scientist. Sophie's a leading expert in the science of sleep and well-being. Hello, Sophie, and welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much, Joe. So in a minute, we're going to see how I responded and reacted to the sleep experiment. And it was really tough. It was the hardest thing I've done. But why is sleep so important to us? So Speaker 3 (1:23) our sleep need is wired into our DNA. Every cell, every... organ, every system in our body needs to operate on a regular cycle of activity during daylight hours and recovery at night. And when we don't do that, when we don't give ourselves the opportunity to sleep at night, we interfere not just with the restorative processes that happen during sleep, but we also disrupt all these natural rhythms within the body and the whole body is under stress. It works less efficiently. Speaker 2 (1:57) That's a great explanation. It's one of the reasons I love my sleep so much. And I can feel like when I'm not getting enough and it affects so much of my life. But what does happen when we don't get enough sleep? Speaker 3 (2:06) Well, you can basically pick any part of the body and kind of ask, OK, what does lack of sleep do to that? So if we start with the brain, when we are asleep. Our brain is busy consolidating new information. It's really taking information from a short-term memory storage bank and it's mapping it onto the much larger cortex, which frees us up to learn more new stuff the next day. So it's really going to help with your concentration and your focus. But sleep is also really important for emotional regulation. So when you haven't slept well, as I'm sure you've noticed, you feel a lot more... irritable and even anxious more come on to that but physically sleep is the time where we repair damage So if, for example, you go to the gym and you lift weights, what happens is you cause these microscopic damage in your muscle cells. And it's during sleep that you're actually able to mend, to repair and come back stronger. So a lot of people see sleep as something that brings you back to baseline. But when you get it right, you actually improve performance. Speaker 2 (3:16) Sophie, I really do love my sleep. I've got four kids who do interrupt it quite a bit, but I still do try in an ideal world to get eight hours sleep a night. But for this experiment, I actually restricted myself to just five hours sleep a night for three days. Do you want Speaker 1 (3:29) to Speaker 2 (3:29) see how I got on? Let's see. Let's check it out. So Speaker 1 (3:36) this is day one of my sleep experiment. It's 6.20am. I feel horrendous. But I can already tell this is going to be really hard because I'm not in a good mood. Five hours sleep is not the one. I'm gonna go for a little walk for half an hour, see if I can pick my mood up a little bit, but I'm already stressed out by the thought of like doing this for three nights. But I'm out and about and having a little walk and I instinctively know that I'm gonna feel a little bit better at the end of this. Do you know what the hardest part was? It was just like staying awake. But I will be interested to see How it affects my food choices, my appetite, my cravings, what I eat. I'm only awake for like 19 hours a day. I'm never awake for 19 hours a day. Do you know what as well? I love my naps. I've told my wife Rosie and the kids, if you see me dozing off or snoozing on the sofa, come and chuck a nice cold glass of water over my head. It's so quiet in this house. Four kids will be running down here any time now. Little Dustin, first one to get out of bed. Speaker 2 (4:31) So each day I've got some tests to fill in to check my energy levels before and after a night's sleep. Speaker 1 (4:35) So I imagine this is going to change over the next few days based on how I'm feeling. Do you feel not at all tired, extremely tired? No, I'm feeling pretty tired. I'm going to give it an eight. Speaker 2 (4:48) So I've just got to Kingston with my kids, took them Speaker 1 (4:50) to the arcade and I tell you what I'm already wilting mate. It's 12.30 in the afternoon. I am desperate to go to bed and I've got two more days of this. It's lunchtime. What are we going to go for Marley? I said I was going to try and have a healthy day, but you know what? I fancy a burger and chips and a nice pint of fizzy Buble, full fat, full sugar. Is it going to give me energy? Probably not, but it's the thing about a good night's sleep. I feel like my food choices and my discipline and my Speaker 2 (5:17) willpower just diminishes. And after some tasty food, me and the kids head back home. It's 5pm. We're Speaker 1 (5:24) out on a little run, me and the kids, because I was about to sit on the sofa. and fall asleep. But actually, within a couple of minutes of Speaker 2 (5:32) being out in the fresh air, the instant lift in my mood and energy is unreal. Lenny, you're so quick. Look at her go. Speaker 1 (5:40) Evening. It's 11 o'clock, day one, almost bedtime. Yeah, I'm just bored. I'm just sitting up. I'm just like watching the hours go by. Everyone's gone to bed. Hopefully tomorrow's a bit more energetic. But yeah, good night, everyone. Speaker 1 (5:55) Here we are, day number two, and it is 5.36am. I never wanted to snooze so much in my life. The tiredness just builds and builds. I'm going to go for another walk, see anything I can feel that I can do. I'm genuinely feeling really annoyed. The sun's just about come up. Oh, it's freezing. I think my head's just in a headspace of like, whatever you do today, be gentle. Exercise is such a big part of my life. And for me, I can't train how I want if I'm only going to have five hours sleep. I've got no oomph. I'm just heading out, getting my trainers on. If I think of all the things I do to help me in my career and help me with what I do and my output, sleep is literally the number one factor. Come on, let's do this. Keep moving. One thing I've thought about a lot... during this experiment is like all the people out there that kind of are having to get up at mad times and that and just shift patterns, shift workers, like respect that to anyone out there who's, you know, getting by on five hours sleep and this is their normal, you know. Come on, let's try and flip this. Just try and see this as a positive thing. I get a longer day alive. I'll get to do more. I'll get to see my kids a bit more. I'm awake. It's not all bad. Come on, you're stronger than you think. I can do hard things. I can do hard things. Come on. Yes. Right, time for a nice shower. Freezing cold. This will wake me up. Speaker 2 (7:19) I'm alive, baby! Speaker 1 (7:20) It's got to 3pm now and I'm really feeling the tiredness. So guess what I do? Let's get some chocolate. It's got to be a little bit in the cupboard. Oh, that Speaker 2 (7:30) is lovely. It is 8pm. Margarita for the win. Speaker 3 (7:35) Incredible. Speaker 2 (7:36) So pizza for dinner and we've got cereal for pudding. How many bowls of cereal are we going to eat? Eight! Speaker 1 (7:44) Almost midnight and I'm just, I'm so done with this. I'm honestly cannot wait for this to be over. Yeah, see you on the other side. Goodnight. Day number three. The time is... 5.15am, so that is officially three nights back to back. Lack of sleep affects almost every other element of my health. I'm snacking more, I'm moving less, but also my average screen time. Up 53 % from the week before, so this is 13 and a half hours of screen time. That's savage. Speaker 2 (8:20) There you go. Can you see how much it affects me? Even three days, I feel like a bit dramatic, but I really did feel like that, you know. Wow. I was like grumpy. I was just irritable. I Speaker 3 (8:29) think a lot of people will be fascinated with that, partly because five hours of sleep, as you say, is normal for some people. But your sleep need, it seems like it's more like eight hours. That's your norm. Yeah, that's my ideal. three hours that you're missing out on sleep every single night and as you experience there we build up what's called a sleep debt so with each successive night of poor sleep we tend to experience more extreme impacts that's Speaker 2 (8:57) what i felt like it was like feeling and just everything became a bit more intense like stressed out about things you know irritable reacting like negatively because usually when i'm sleeping well and exercising i've just got a much better like a bit more patience and stuff and that and i just felt Yeah, it just wasn't good for me overall. And obviously the kids, they thought it was funny because I was going around the shop and eating every bit of sugar I could find. Yeah, Speaker 3 (9:17) so Speaker 2 (9:17) let's talk about the impact Speaker 3 (9:18) on your appetite. So we know that there are multiple ways that lack of sleep affects the choices of food that you make and also how you metabolize that food. So you'll typically see with short sleep, you get an increase in the hormone ghrelin that makes you feel hungry and a reduction in the hormone leptin that makes you feel full. So you've got these hormonal messages telling you to eat more. And at the same time, the parts of your brain which light up in... response to rewards become more sensitive to high fat, high calorie food. And I think this makes sense when we think, how does our brain and body interpret sleep loss? And for me, this is fundamental to all of the impacts of lack of sleep. Because if we go back 100,000 years ago or so to when our ancestors