Matt Walker is a Professor of Neuroscience at UC Berkeley, trying to understand why we sleep.
Men who sleep five hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than those who sleep seven hours or more.
Men who routinely sleep four to five hours a night have a level of testosterone which is that of someone 10 years their senior. Lack of sleep can age a man by a decade. There is an equivalent impairments in female reproductive health caused by the lack of sleep.
Your brain needs adequate sleep to absorb, and to retain new memories. Scientist validated these assumptions by comparing a group of sleep deprived students to a group that got 8 hours of sleep before taking a test. The former had a 40% deficit in their ability to make memories. For some children, this could be the difference between getting an A and failing.
A brain on sleep deprivation shuts down your brain's ability to commit new experiences to memory, according to the MRI images obtained from subjects in study.
It is suggested that disruption of deep sleep is a serious contributor to memory decline.
No, they do not produce naturalistic sleep.
Yes, sleep is essential for our body and specifically for the cardiovascular system. We can measure it during the Daylight Time transitions, where the rate of heart attacks before/after go up and down by 27% each year, indicating that even 1 hour of sleep deprivation can have a tremendous impact on the physiology of our body.
If you are not sleeping enough, even as little as only sleeping 4 hours for 1 night, your immune system becomes significantly impacted. The link between lack of sleep and cancer is so strong now, some night-shift jobs are being classified as carcinogens.
1 - Regularity. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time. It will anchor your sleep and improve its quality.
2 - Sleep in cool temperature. Your body needs to drop the temperature to sleep; 65 degree Fahrenheit is optimal for most people.
Sleep is not an optional luxury, it is a non-negotiable biological necessity. Treat it that way.