Dr. Sophie Bostock

Yeah, I totally agree.

It's really this oscillation between the different sleep stages.

Yes.

Keep the lights on all the time.

I think some people will become more aggressive.

Some people may become more passive, withdraw socially.

which may depend on your personality.

So if everybody goes three days without sleep, it's going to be really unpleasant society where some people are trying to invade others and others are just hiding away.

One of the defining features of sleep deprivation is you get these unpredictable, invasive micro-sleeps.

So for the most part, you're functioning pretty well.

But what happens is that your brain switches off consciousness for anything from one to maybe even 30 seconds.

And these micro-sleeps are thought to be responsible for probably about one in five fatal car accidents.

If you sleep less, your body has less opportunity to produce growth hormones.

You can see a correlation.

I'm not sure that it's direct.

We typically say that most working age adults need seven hours or more to function at their best.

But you can think about your sleep need a bit like any other biological characteristic.

There will be some people who can naturally thrive on a little bit less and some people who need a little bit more.

So usually it's physical endurance that people can maintain more than anything.

But actually, can we respond intelligently to a question?