You’re Not Tired — You’re Sleep-Deprived (And It’s Costing You Your Life)

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   A lot of people when they talk about health and happiness and those topics, you know, they, they tend to focus on things like what we eat. You know, that seems to be a really big, um, factor in health. One of the things we've talked about there that I also read about in your, in your work is you would actually suggest that the maybe the most foundational thing to all of our lives, and it's kind of clearly one of the things that I've, I've not been so consistent with, is sleep. So why is sleep so foundational and so, so important? I actually read that you said if there was one sort of health recommendation you would make to everybody, it would be to try and get more sleep. Why do you prioritize that so highly? Why is that so important?

2. SPSpeaker0:41

   I think the reason why sleep is so important for society at the moment is because of how much we've lost. So depending on which study you, you read, you'll have a slightly different, uh, result. But essentially, compared to about 60 years ago, you know, we may have lost up to 25% of our sleep, right? So on an eight-hour sleep cycle, we may have lost, you know, two hours of sleep. Right? Now, when you think about what sleep does for the body and the brain and the mind, you'd be like, well, actually that is gonna have a consequence. So in the short term, we all know, what does it feel like when we haven't slept well, okay? Do we feel like our best selves? No. We're a bit irritable. We're a bit moody. What are we like with those closest to us when we haven't slept well? Are we patient and calm? Are we a bit ratty? A bit angsty? What do you crave when you haven't slept well? You don't crave fruit and vegetables and whole foods. You crave sugar and cakes and candy, right? Because your hormones change when you haven't slept properly, right? You're less able to resist temptation when you haven't slept, right? You're much more likely to get emotionally triggered when you haven't slept. So sleep is really, really important in the short term, but in the long term, sleep deprivation is associated with pretty much every single chronic disease we have. Heart disease, Alzheimer's, um, autoimmune disease, all these things now we're pretty sure are directly not just associated with sleep deprivation, is thought to be causative.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:28

   Mm.

4. SPSpeaker2:28

   Right? So this is why we think, "Oh, I'm just gonna crush it in my 20s, 30s."

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:33

   Yeah.

6. SPSpeaker2:34

   Uh, you know, "I'll sleep when I'm dead. I'll sleep later." I get there are phases in our life where we have to probably work harder than we would ideally do. We, we get opportunities, we have to take it... or we feel we have to take advantage of them. Fine, I get that. I'm not saying you're gonna sleep seven to eight hours every single night. I don't manage to, and I do prioritize my sleep. But by and large, the biggest problem we have with sleep is that we don't prioritize it. We've never lived in a society where there are this many distractions from sleep. A million years ago you didn't have... You know, what do you do? It gets dark, you have a campfire, you sit around and chat, and then, yeah, [chuckles] you go off to bed, aren't you?

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:17

   It's so true. We live as if sleep is the, the, the only optional thing. It's the thing that can... We could do one hour, two hours, three hours, but we then over prioritize. But I can't miss that appointment, I can't miss that work commitment. But the sleep can come and go. It's like the-

8. SPSpeaker3:31

   It's, it's optional. Yeah.

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:31

   Yeah.

10. SPSpeaker3:31

    And, and it's... A- and I get the temptation. There's always something you could do. You could watch a YouTube video.

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:38

    Yeah.

12. SPSpeaker3:38

    You could watch a new Boss series. You know, I understand that there are distractions. I, I totally get that. But if you are struggling in life, if you can't focus as much as you want to at work, if you've tried going on diets before and you can't stick to eating the right kinds of foods that you're trying to choose, you may be better off focusing on your sleep. I've helped people lose weight, I've helped people improve so many aspects of their health by not changing their diet. And I'm a big proponent of whole food-based diets, right? But I've gone, what's the lever I need to turn here? Not what can I lecture the patient about? What is the lever I need to turn here? So I talk about these four pillars of health, certainly for physical health: food, movement, sleep, and relaxation. And when my first book came out talking about this about five years ago, people say, "Dr. Chatterjee, where should I start?" And I said, "Well, look, we're all different. Ask yourself this question. Ask yourself, which of these four pillars do I need the most help with?" 'Cause we all kind of intuitively know. For me, it's probably stress, right? My diet and movement's pretty good. I'm pretty good in my sleep. But if I could do more to manage stress, that would have a huge impact on my health. But we don't do that. We go to our favorite bit, right? So people who've already pretty good with their diet, they try and make it 5% better, negating the fact that they're only sleeping four and a half hours every night. If it feels like you've forgotten how to feel joy, like you're surviving and not really living, I've created a free guide to help you. Because happiness isn't something you chase, it's something you train your brain to feel. I've created a free guide, The Happiness Prescription: 5 Daily Rituals That Rewire Your Brain for Joy. These are the exact rituals I've used with many of my patients to help them feel alive again, even in the middle of stress, fatigue, or loss. To get your free guide now, click the first link in the description box below or scan the QR code on screen. But go to your weakest link. Make a small change there. I'm not talking about seven, eight hours. If you can even sleep for 15 minutes more a night, you will have a noticeable and measurable impact on your physiology and the way that you feel. And the other thing we're now learning about-Um, sleep, particularly I think it's the REM, the REM phase of sleep, is it's what sleep researchers are calling emotional first aid, right? It allows you to process and, you know, kind of regulate emotions and memories. So we are living in this time of a mental health epidemic. I'm very concerned over what the impact of the last couple of years is gonna have on people's mental wellbeing. But a lot of people don't realize that sleep, when you sleep more, when you sleep of better quality, you actually do emotional first aid. You actually are better at processing emotions. Your relationships will be better. Your mood will be better when you sleep more. So the number one thing we don't do is prioritize it. So for most people, if all they do is prioritize it, that would be a big start. And then I always think I need to say when I'm talking about sleep, I don't wanna stress people out because some people may hear that, Steven, and go, "Oh my, now I'm stressed out," right? "I've s- I've heard what you've just said sleep's gonna do," or, "I've got a young child. I can't sleep through the night." That's okay. We all have phases like that. This is day in, day out over a period of years I'm talking about in terms of chronic disease. But there are small things that you can do, right? Getting outside in the morning for even 10 minutes and seeing natural light, that will help you sleep better at night. That is free. It is accessible to everyone, right? Why? If you think about what I said about a million years ago, we've, we have evolved as humans to have a big differential between our maximum light exposure and our minimum light exposure, right? So typically, in the day we'd be outside, and at nighttime it would be completely dark, right? So, so light is measured in a unit of light called lux, right? Completely dark room, zero lux. If you go outside on a cloudy day in the UK, overcast cloudy day, for 10 or 15 minutes, you're gonna get about 10,000 lux through your eyes. Go out on a sunny day, you're gonna get about 20,000 or 30,000 lux through your eyes. Go into the most brightly lit office building in the UK, and you're probably gonna get between 500 and 700 lux. It's not much. Even on a cloudy day, you're getting so much more than you would get inside. So for some people, all they have to do is get outside in the morning for 10 minutes or even at lunchtime go for a walk outside for 10 minutes. That will help set what's called your circadian rhythm, which helps you sleep better at night. So that's a simple one. Caffeine's a big one, right? You know, I love coffee, but I don't drink it after midday, right? I'll drink it in the morning. I won't drink it after midday. There are genetic differences between different people in how we process it, for sure. But, you know, by and large, the half-life is six hours. So that means if you have a large coffee at midday, at 6:00 PM, half of that caffeine is going around your brain, and it could be at midnight, a quarter could still be going around your brain.

13. SPSpeaker9:16

    Mm-hmm.

14. SPSpeaker9:16

    So this is not about lecturing. This is about hopefully empowering people to go, "Oh, maybe that 3:00 PM coffee I take to get me through the afternoon, oh, maybe that's why I can't sleep well. And then I'm even more tired the next day, and I'm stuck in this vicious cycle where I need the caffeine to keep getting me through." And again, if someone's listening to this and they're not sure, I would say, okay, why not try for seven days only having caffeine in the morning and just see what happens? Observe. Do you feel better? Does it help? Do you have more energy? Great. And if you think you're somewhere and you really think it's a problem, you might wanna wean down and try seven days without. I never tell my patient to stop drinking coffee or to stop drinking alcohol. I wanna help show them the impact it's having. One of the most important pillars for our health is, of course, nutrition. But I think because of our busy, stressed out lives, so many people are struggling despite their best intentions. So many patients over the years have told me that they know what they should be doing, but they're struggling to actually do it, and that's why I'm a fan of AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that contains over 70 vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients that are designed to make nutrition really easy. It's been in my own life for over six years now. It's simple, it's tasty, it's convenient, and it forms a part of my morning routine. People will routinely tell me that taking AG1 regularly has improved their focus, their cognition, their energy. Some people even tell me that they drink less coffee when they're taking AG1. And there's research out there showing us that taking AG1 regularly can improve specific markers of your gut health, which is really good for your immune health. So if you're looking to upgrade your own nutrition in a simple, tasty, and convenient way, try AG1. To get a free bottle of vitamin D and five free travel packs, go to drinkag1.com/livemore. Right. So let's say a patient's, um, drinking too much alcohol for their health. I wanna help persuade them to go for seven days without and see how they feel, right? If they can experience how they feel differently, and then they go, "Yeah, I love it, but you know what? The amount of fun I get on a Friday night hanging out with my mates having a few beers, it's worth the hangover and the fatigue and the irritability on Saturday," if they say that they're happy with that trade-off, okay, fine. But a lot of people are not aware of the trade-off. Like with coffee, a lot... We are drinking so much. We are a nation of caffeine addicts. We're a world of caffeine addicts, frankly.

15. SPSpeaker12:07

    Mm-hmm.

16. SPSpeaker12:07

    It's a psychoactive stimulantIt's a beautiful one, but it's a psychoactive stimulant. So I'm-- all I'm saying is that if you're struggling with your sleep, you know, you might wanna reduce it. You might wanna knock it back a bit. And there's plenty more we could talk about with sleep-

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:19

    Mm.

18. SPSpeaker12:19

    But all I wanna say to people is small changes to your sleep make a difference. Don't set the goal that it's gonna be eight hours a night. Sure, if you can do that, wonderful. But even 15 minutes more a day will absolutely make a difference.

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:36

    One of the moments in your book that you describe as being really pivotal, uh, and you've, you referenced it earlier as being pivotal to your life, was the moment your child got ill. Um, your six-month-old child got, became unwell, and the kind of... That became a catalyst in your life for, I guess, many things. Can you talk to me about why that was so, um, pivotal? And, and, and why when your child became ill, you, you know, that was, uh, in part what I understand is part of the inspiration behind many of the thoughts in the book.

20. SPSpeaker13:10

    My son, Janum, um, getting sick at six months old literally changed the course of my career. Like, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today had that not happened. So rewind, 2010, I become a father for the first time, right? Super excited, right? It's amazing. We're new parents. Everything's going well, blahdy, blahdy, blah. And that December, um, the end of December, we were-- we decided to go on holiday for a week in France. Uh, I've got friends out there. One of them's got a house out there. We were gonna go and stay there. And we flew out just after Christmas, my wife, myself, and my son. And we got to my friend's house. They weren't gonna be there till the next day. And we're meant to sleep downstairs there. That was the room that we'd been allocated at my friend's place. And normally, my wife would have probably gone and put him to sleep, but she said she didn't feel she wanted to. He was a bit sniffly. He wasn't, um... You know, she, mother's intuition, call it whatever you will, she didn't do it. Anyway, we're, we're upstairs in this kind of open plan kitchen. I think I'm doing some washing up, and then she calls out to me. Says, "Rangan, he's not moving." I drop everything, turn around, see him, and, um, I think he's probably choking because he's had a lot of phlegm all day. So I take him, turn him over. I try and clear his airway. Nothing's happening. Uh, I probably froze. I can't quite remember now with clarity. But my wife said, "Look, we just gotta get him to the hospital." So we got to the hospital, which was two minutes away. We got in, and you could see how scared the, uh, medics were, because it's not uncommon for children at the age of six months to have a convulsion. It's something we call a febrile convulsion. There's a fever that causes the convulsion, but he had no fever. They're like, "Well, why on earth has this six-month-old kid just stopped moving and had a convulsion?" So he got blue lighted down the, uh, 'cause it was a little mountain resort, down to the valley. My wife's going in the ambulance. I'm, like, following in the car thinking, "What on earth is happening?" We get there, you know, he's motionless. We're super scared. We thought we might lose him that night. He had two lumbar punctures. He had all kinds of blood tests. Then it turns out later that he had very low levels of calcium in his blood, which is why he had a convulsion. I thought, "Well, why? Why has that happened?" And they said, "Look, we're still waiting for more tests." A few hours later, it comes back, he's got no vitamin D in his body. Well, very low levels of vitamin D. That's why his calcium dropped. Thankfully, he got a calcium infusion. He got vitamin D. Five days later, you know, we get discharged. But why did that have such a big impact on me? Well, A, of course, I nearly-- my son nearly died, but I thought I'd let him down. That's the truth, Steven. I thought my d-- my son has nearly died from a preventable vitamin deficiency. I've gone to one of Europe's most prestigious medical schools, Edinburgh. I've got an immunology degree. I've done my specialist exams, done my general practice exams. With all my so-called qualifications, I was unable to prevent my son from getting sick. So I took it personally as if I had messed up. And actually, weirdly enough, a few weeks before that, I'd become aware of vitamin D. I'd gone... I, I remember thinking, "Shouldn't my son be on vitamin D?" This was years ago. I remember phoning my wife from work, said, "Hey, can you go and take him to the doctor?" We're told as doctors not to make medical decisions for our own family. It's not deemed good practice. I sent her a protocol to just show that to the doctor, say, "Your husband's a GP. You know, he's just thinking about, about this." And the GP just laughed her out, said, "You could have just printed... You could have just typed this up on Word. This is nonsense. He doesn't need anything." Anyway, two weeks later, he's in France, convulsion, nearly dies. Why does that have such a big impact on me? Why has it had such a big impact on me? Because I thought I'd failed, right? My whole, um, identity is, is around being perfect at that point. So I want perfection in every aspect of my life. Um, I wanted perfection in every aspect of my life. And of course, my darling son, I felt so guilty, Steven, I became obsessed, right? Modern medicine saved his life, but that's it. Modern medicine often stops at that point. I, I was asking them, "Well, what happens if he's not had vitamin D in his system for the last few months?" Which he didn't. Vitamin D is critical for our immune system. It's critical. Could this be why he's got eczema? Could this be a contributing factor? They said, "Look, he's, he's fine now." And I thought, "This is not good enough for me." So I made it my mission. I said to myself internally, I don't think I ever verbalized it out, I said, "I am going to get my son back to full health as if this had never happened." I became obsessed. I'd read up about vitamin D. That led me to the gut microbiome. That led me to all kinds of stuff that I never learnt at medical school that I've usedTo help him. He is a thriving, happy, healthy, strong 11-year-old boy. Okay? The principles and the tools that I've learned are what I've been using with my patients for years. It's what I used on Doctor in the House on BBC One to show people all around the country, and it's gone to 70 countries around the world, that all kinds of conditions, type 2 diabetes, fibromyalgia, panic attacks, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome, can all be either reversed or significantly improved by making small changes to our lifestyle. That moment drove me to learn all this stuff, which I now share and help, you know, arguably millions of people now. And for years, I wished it didn't happen, but I've, I've changed my view for two reasons. One reason was that guilt I felt, Stephen, I carried in as a dad. He doesn't need his dad feeling guilty. That doesn't make me a calm, present, attentive father. That brings baggage into the relationship, and I, I could see that. While I, I'd like to think, particularly these days, I've got a high degree of self-awareness, I could see that. See, Rangan, this is guilt. It's not his fault. He doesn't need a guilty dad. So that was a stimulus to go inward and figure some of this stuff out, to figure out where does this come from. But it all plays in, Stephen. It all... You know, as we talk, you can see the theme in the start of our conversation, in the middle, now talking about my son. I have expected perfection of myself in everything I've ever done. Right? That's been my identity. With my son, I felt as though I let him down. Now, I've let go of pretty much all of that. It... I say pretty much, 'cause it still pops in. So in my role as a father, I think I do a good job. They're kind, considerate kids. They're happy. But could I do a better job? Probably. I'm not gonna beat myself up on that anymore, but I wanna work on that. So now I look back and I've now told myself a different story. Right? Is this true? You can tell me if you think it's true. I now think that was meant to happen. That happened so that Daddy could learn all of the, um, tools that I'd learned to help him and now help thousands of people, hundreds of thousands. You know, as I say, arguably millions. I wouldn't have had those learnings had it not happened. Now, when I started thinking like that, I would think, "Yeah, but why did he have to go through that in order for me to learn this?" But again, that's me putting a story. What do you mean go through it? Maybe he doesn't know he's been through anything. Maybe that's his life journey. Maybe he's gonna learn loads from that experience. Do you know what I mean?

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:16

    And that's the perspective choice, I guess, you, you talked about earlier. It's almost like making an incident, a negative incident, the hero of your own life as opposed to the, you know, s- shrouding it with guilt and blame and resentment, so.

22. SPSpeaker21:28

    Yeah. It's choosing a happiness story about it. Because ultimately, I can't change the reality of what happened. Wh- whether I wanted it to or not, of course, at that moment, would I want it to happen? No, of course not. But now, given that it can't be changed, given that it is, has happened and is now in the past, how now to show up in my everyday life and be happy, be content, help people, serve people, serve my children as a good father? Well, it's to let go of that and move on. Choose a happiness story. We can all do it. It's hard sometimes, but it doesn't mean it's not possible. If you enjoyed that short clip, I think you are really going to enjoy the full conversation, which you can check out here. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 22:26