Matt Walker: Sleep is your superpower

  • reproductive: relating to the process of reproduction; relating to the production of new life

And we see equivalent impairments in female reproductive health caused by a lack of sleep.

  • circuits: something shaped approximately like a circle, especially a route, path, or sports track that starts and ends in the same place

And without sleep, the memory circuits of the brain essentially become waterlogged, as it were, and you can't absorb new memories.

  • slumber: sleep

Now the sleep group, they're going to get a full eight hours of slumber, but the deprivation group, we're going to keep them awake in the laboratory, under full supervision.

  • electrode: the point at which an electric current enters or leaves something, for example, a battery

  • spindle: a part of a machine around which something turns, or a rod onto which thread is twisted when it is spun (= made by twisting)

And by placing electrodes all over the head, what we've discovered is that there are big, powerful brainwaves that happen during the very deepest stages of sleep that have riding on top of them these spectacular bursts of electrical activity that we call sleep spindles.

  • reservoir: a place for storing liquid, especially a natural or artificial lake providing water for a city or other area; a large supply of something

And it's the combined quality of these deep-sleep brainwaves that acts like a file-transfer mechanism at night, shifting memories from a short-term vulnerable reservoir to a more permanent long-term storage site within the brain, and therefore protecting them, making them safe.

  • fiendishly: extremely

Unlike many of the other factors that we know are associated with aging, for example changes in the physical structure of the brain, that's fiendishly difficult to treat.

  • amplify: to make something louder; to increase the size or effect of something

Now if you apply this stimulation during sleep in young, healthy adults, as if you're sort of singing in time with those deep-sleep brainwaves, not only can you amplify the size of those deep-sleep brainwaves, but in doing so, we can almost double the amount of memory benefit that you get from sleep.

  • salvage: to save goods from damage or destruction, especially from a ship that has sunk or been damaged or a building that has been damaged by fire or a flood; to try to make a bad situation better

Can we restore back some healthy quality of deep sleep, and in doing so, can we salvage aspects of their learning and memory function?

  • tumor: a mass of diseased cells that might become a lump or cause illness

In fact, what they're doing here is destroying a cancerous tumor mass.

  • virile: powerful, strong, and energetic

So what you wish for is a virile set of these immune assassins at all times, and tragically, that's what you don't have if you're not sleeping enough.

  • carcinogen: a substance that causes cancer

In fact, the link between a lack of sleep and cancer is now so strong that the World Health Organization has classified any form of nighttime shift work as a probable carcinogen, because of a disruption of your sleep-wake rhythms.

  • maxim: a brief statement of a general truth, principle, or rule for behavior

So you may have heard of that old maxim that you can sleep when you're dead.

  • epidemiological: relating to the scientific study of diseases and how they are found, spread, and controlled in groups of people

We know this from epidemiological studies across millions of individuals.

  • disquieting: causing anxiety; worrying

And if increasing your risk for the development of cancer or even Alzheimer's disease were not sufficiently disquieting, we have since discovered that a lack of sleep will even erode the very fabric of biological life itself, your DNA genetic code.

  • inflammation: a red, painful, and often swollen area in or on a part of your body

In contrast, those genes that were actually upregulated or increased by way of a lack of sleep, were genes associated with the promotion of tumors, genes associated with long-term chronic inflammation within the body, and genes associated with stress, and, as a consequence, cardiovascular disease.

  • unscathed: without injuries or damage being caused

There is simply no aspect of your wellness that can retreat at the sign of sleep deprivation and get away unscathed.

  • every nook and cranny: every part of a place

  • tamper: to touch or make changes to something that you should not, usually without enough knowledge of how it works or when you are trying to damage it

  • nucleic: a type of acid that exists in all living cells

  • spell out: to explain something in a very clear way with details

  • narrative: a story or a description of a series of events, a particular way of explaining or understanding events

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

Sleep loss will leak down into every nook and cranny of your physiology, even tampering with the very DNA nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health narrative.

  • anchor: to make something or someone stay in one position by fastening him, her, or it firmly; to keep a boat from moving by dropping a heavy metal object attached to it by a rope or chain into the water so that it rests on the bottom

Regularity is king, and it will anchor your sleep and improve the quantity and the quality of that sleep.

  • optimal: best; most likely to bring success or advantage

That's going to be optimal for the sleep of most people.

  • mission-critical: extremely important or necessary for a company, activity, etc. to operate successfully

And then finally, in taking a step back, then, what is the mission-critical statement here?

  • immortality: the quality of being able to live or last for ever

It is your life-support system, and it is Mother Nature's best effort yet at immortality.

  • decimation: the act of killing a something in large numbers, or reducing something severely

And the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, even the safety and the education of our children.

  • stigma: a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something, especially when this is unfair

I believe it is now time for us to reclaim our right to a full night of sleep, and without embarrassment or that unfortunate stigma of laziness.

  • elixir: a substance, usually a liquid, with a magical power to cure, improve, or preserve something

And in doing so, we can be reunited with the most powerful elixir of life, the Swiss Army knife of health, as it were.

  • rant: to speak, write or shout in a loud, uncontrolled, or angry way, often saying confused or silly things

And with that soapbox rant over, I will simply say, good night, good luck, and above all ... I do hope you sleep well.

  • analogy: a comparison between things that have similar features, often used to help explain a principle or idea

So the analogy would be, you'd never sit at the dinner table, waiting to get hungry, so why would you lie in bed, waiting to get sleepy?