Dr. Matt Walker

And then what they did was they measured the change in their gene activity profile.

Relative to when those same individuals, as I said, were getting a full eight hour plus opportunity in bed versus the six hours of limited sleep.

And they found two interesting things.

First, a sizable and significant 711 genes were distorted in their activity caused by a lack of sleep.

By the way, that's relevant.

We know that almost one out of every three, maybe even one out of every two, if you look at the data, people that pass you on the street is trying to survive on six hours of sleep or less during the week.

So it's a relevant ecological manipulation.

The second result was that about half of those genes were increased in their activity.

The other half were decreased.

Now, those genes that were impaired by way of one week of short sleep were genes associated with the immune system.

So once again, you can see this immune deficiency, but now playing out at a genetic level.

Those genes that were increased, or what we call overexpressed, were genes that were associated with the promotion of tumors, genes that were associated with long-term chronic inflammation within the body, and genes that were associated with cellular stress, and as a consequence, cardiovascular disease.

And to me, that study impressed the fact that there is no aspect of your wellness that seems to be able to retreat at the sign of sleep deprivation and get away unscathed.

It's almost like a broken water pipe in your home.

that sleep will leak down into every nook and cranny of your physiology.

And it will even tamper with the very DNA nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health narrative.

So I paint this picture, which seems dire.

And I think someone once said to me, look, your TED Talk, which I think was called Sleep is Your Superpower,

They said that talk should have actually been sleep or else dot, dot, dot, which was a completely fair thing because I think, you know, very early on as a public figure for sleeper, I did a terrible job.

I was very dictatorial.