Gemma Speck

But researchers at the Center of Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania, they conducted a chronic sleep restriction experiment with 48 participants aged 21 to 38.

And

They basically put them in these different conditions where they either restricted rest and sleep to eight hours, six hours or four hours.

And this was maintained for two weeks.

Then the people either didn't get any sleep for three days or they were allowed to sleep for three days.

Honestly, at that point, I'd probably be hallucinating.

So I hope these subjects got paid some cash.

But what they found was that those who had either four or six hours of sleep a night, their cognitive performance day after day got so bad to the point where their level of impairment was the same as being drunk.

As if they had consumed multiple beers, multiple glasses of wine.

The scary part is that people often, a lot of these people were like, I don't feel any different.

So they walk around and they think, cool, it's okay for me to drive and I'm paying attention at work and I'm paying attention in class and I'm making good decisions.

And they're just not because they haven't restored their minds.

And again, this is exactly what participants in this study also reported.

They found that those who slept for six hours or less were also kind of experiencing this as well.

And you remember those people who didn't sleep for three days?

The cumulative effect of sleeping six hours or less, five, four hours for two weeks is

and not sleeping at all for two days was the same.

So that I'm fine feeling, A is a lie.

You're not fine.

You need to rest.