Wake-Up Call

Producers: Jonathan Harley and Glenda Gaitz

So, how did YOU sleep last night?

If you had a rough time, if you're feeling tired, lethargic and grumpy - we understand.

And Peter Overton knows what it's like because he has just been part of a remarkable and very revealing experiment to find out what happens to us when we don't get enough sleep.

Peter had to stay awake for nearly 40 hours and, this Sunday night, you'll see what a mess that made of his brain.

And what's more, it might give you some insight into why teenage kids can be so hard to handle.

But even more startling are the long-term effects.

They show, without doubt, why we can't live without a good night's sleep.

Contacts

Centre for sleep research is at www.unisa.edu.au/sleep/

For devices that help drivers know when they're too drowsy to driver, viewers might also be interested in: www.optalert.com/

For the drowsy driving stunt we used The Adelaide International Raceway: www.adelaideraceway.com.au

Full transcript

INTRODUCION PETER OVERTON: So, how did you sleep last night? If you had a rough time, if you're feeling tired, lethargic and grumpy I understand. I know what it's like because I have just been part of a remarkable and very revealing experiment to find out what happens to us when we don't get enough sleep. I had to stay awake for nearly 40 hours. In a moment, you'll see what a mess that made of my brain. And what's more it might give you some insight into why teenage kids can be so hard to handle. But even more startling are the long-term effects. They show, without doubt, why we can't live without a good night's sleep.

STORY PETER OVERTON: I'm driving as if I'm over the limit, but I haven't had a drink in days. Oooops, sorry mate. Sleep expert Dr Drew Dawson has kept me awake for almost 40 hours in an exhausting experiment. Woooh! Wooo, woo, wooh! The aim: to prove the disastrous consequences of not getting enough sleep.

DR DREW DAWSON: Lack of sleep can kill you. It can kill you quickly in a car accident or it can kill you slowly through diabetes, obesity or heart attack. It is the difference between good and bad health, life and death in many circumstances.

PETER OVERTON: But generally we don't even think about sleep?

DR DREW DAWSON: Good sleep is like good sex. It's only a problem if you don't get it.

(RADIO ANNOUNCER) Good morning Adelaide. Rise and shine! Time to get up!

PETER OVERTON: Like millions of Australians 24-year-old Courtney Semmler gets by on too little sleep.

COURTNEY SEMMLER: Hello, Nova, Courtney speaking.

PETER OVERTON: Courtney is a P.A. at Adelaide's Nova FM, and from first light she's on the go. Most adults, like Courtney, should get about 8 hours sleep. How much sleep do you get a night?

COURTNEY SEMMLER: Probably six hours, seven hours is good but probably about six hours a night.

PETER OVERTON: That's not much.

COURTNEY SEMMLER: This is the world we live in, though. You have got to try and fit everything in and life is busy and you've got to keep moving up the ladder and being successful and doing everything. So, yeah, it is just the way you live these days.

DR DREW DAWSON: What we're going to do here is try and test your balance particularly when your eyes are closed. So if you could stand on the platform.

PETER OVERTON: But, like me, Courtney is about to get a serious wake-up call.

NURSE: Courtney, what we're going to do is insert glucose sensor into your tummy.

PETER OVERTON: She is joining me in a dramatic experiment at Drew Dawson's University of South Australia Sleep Lab. You've got to think about this, don't you? Sorry. So what are we testing for, Drew?

DR DREW DAWSON: Well what were testing for is speed and accuracy of your brain. What we find is that as people become more and more tired their brain slows down. In effect, the old expression - "My brain feels like jelly", is a really good way of explaining what happens to people at 4:00am in the morning.

PETER OVERTON: Over coming days, both of us will be closely monitored and both of us will discover just how badly our thinking, our reflexes and even our health can be affected when deprived of sleep.

DR DREW DAWSON: Hey Courtney, sleeping?

COURTNEY SEMMLER: Ooops.

PETER OVERTON: I'll be kept awake for 40 hours straight, but Courtney faces an even longer haul - 2 days and 2 nights - 60 hours in all. It's now pushing towards 4:30am and the fight is on to keep awake.

COURTNEY SEMMLER: It is 5:00am now and I'm feeling really, really tired. My eyes are heavy so I don't know how I am going to get through another day, another night and another day.

PETER OVERTON: What we're trying to do is simulate the effects of long-term sleep deprivation like that experienced by a new parent, a shift worker or a long-haul truckie. I've been awake now for 25 hours and that's on the back of a full days work, and I'm feeling very tired. Battling that swaying feeling and, indeed, I'm fighting that need to go to sleep. I could go to sleep right now. But that is part of the study. Drew, what on earth is happening to me?

DR DREW DAWSON: Well, as you've seen this evening and early this morning, your brain has slowed down. You are making more mistakes. I think inside your body a whole lot of changes are taking place as well.

PETER OVERTON: I can feel my reaction times deteriorating. I can't do the tests, add up the numbers accurately after a lack of sleep. what does it matter?

DR DREW DAWSON: Imagine you were calculating the dose of a drug for a patient as a doctor working in casualty or you were trying to calculate the length of a runway as a pilot coming in for a difficult landing. All of a sudden those calculations are the difference of life and death.

PETER OVERTON: And I am about to discover that - first hand. Courtney will stay behind in the lab eventually going another 36 hours without sleep. But I am being tested out in the real world, at a race track. I'm doing what I know I shouldn't be doing - behind the wheel of a car. I have been awake for 30 hours. But strangely, right now, I feel OK. It may be witches hats on a test track with a safety driver beside me but I am horrified at just how out of control I am. Drifting...drifting. Wooh! Oh, Peter! I can barely drive in a straight line. And when surprises are set up to test my reaction times... ..I barely see them. If they had been kids on a crossing, God forbid.

DR DREW DAWSON: So, Peter, what happened?

PETER OVERTON: Well, I saw them and hit the brakes hard and, um, I don't know... I thought I did a good job.

DR DREW DAWSON: Have you noticed your speech slowing down?

PETER OVERTON: Oh, yeah. I've been slow the whole way.

DR DREW DAWSON: Was there a moment where you saw it and you thought I should be doing something and it wasn't happening?

PETER OVERTON: Well, no, I didn't even have a thought like that. I just... I felt... I feel really, um, slow. I mean, I don't know, is it like driving with a few beers under your belt?

DR DREW DAWSON: Twice the legal limit.

PETER OVERTON: God, so twice the legal limit?

DR DREW DAWSON: Twice. Twice the legal limit. The difficulty for most people is that the one time they learn that lesson is when they are hitting the tree.

NURSE: G'day Andrew, how you feeling? I'm just going to flush that out for you.

PETER OVERTON: Andrew Davies didn't hit a tree, he hit a parked car and now he is a paraplegic. Andrew was so exhausted after working for 10 weeks straight, that early one morning on his way to work, he fell asleep on a motor-bike! Can you remember the moment when you shut your eyes on the bike?

ANDREW DAVIES: Yes I can. I can remember the moment I opened them and saw the parked car as well. It felt like a second.

PETER OVERTON: Now much of Andrew's life is spent in hospital. And the man who loved his job as a toolmaker will never work again.

ANDREW DAVIES: I didn't realise the effects of just having 4-6 hours sleep a night would do to me. No matter how much money you are earning it's not worth it if you end up in a wheelchair.

PETER OVERTON: And look how quickly your life can change. Watch as this driver's eyelids droop only to wake up when its too late. Amazingly this guy survived but just imagine if he'd been at the wheel of an oil tanker. Because lack of sleep is now being linked to some of the world's biggest catastrophes including the Exxon Valdez oil spill...

TELEVISION FOOTAGE: Lift-off of the 25th space shuttle mission. ..and the 'Challenger' space shuttle disaster.

DR DREW DAWSON: Fatigue is the last frontier. It's the poor sleep, led to poor judgement that led to what underlies some of those real major disasters.

COURTNEY SEMMLER: I've hit a brick wall and I just want to curl up somewhere and sleep and my eyes keep closing but I keep getting woken up.

PETER OVERTON: It's not just sudden accidents that are the killer. Lack of sleep also kills you slowly. And, back in the lab, Courtney's body is now shutting down.

DR DREW DAWSON: We have a very significant increase in her glucose levels.

PETER OVERTON: She is entering her third day without sleep, her blood sugar levels have plummeted and she's bingeing on fatty foods.

DR DREW DAWSON: What happens is the brain, after you have been up for 50 hours says, "I'm exhausted, I need energy in order to function." So Courtney's dietary preferences have shifted away from green fruits and salads and healthy foods to foods that are high in sugar, high in fat and high in immediate levels of energy.

PETER OVERTON: Alarmingly, by the time Courtney finally finishes the experiment after nearly 60 hours - she's showing the first signs of diabetes. Evidence that lack of sleep could be contributing to the nation's sharp rise in this disease and many others.

DR DREW DAWSON: If we look at this clinically, we've aged her 5 to 10 years in terms of her glucose response and her diabetic status, compared to somebody who is fully rested.

PETER OVERTON: She's on the road to diabetes?

DR DREW DAWSON: We see a link between sleep loss, obesity, diabetes, and then going on to cardiovascular stroke and those kind of illness.

PETER OVERTON: And I always thought it was just good exercise and good diet.

DR DREW DAWSON: Well I think now, as our grandmothers told us, we have to add a new one into that and get a good night's sleep.

PETER OVERTON: What have you learnt then about sleep?

COURTNEY SEMMLER: Fighting the the closing eyes and the heavy head and I don't want to feel, I don't want to feel that any more so if I'm tired I will go to bed.

PETER OVERTON: But it's not just the adults who are ignoring the warning signs of sleep debt. Those most affected may actually be teenagers - kids like Allannah Daniels. Allanah, what time do you go to bed?

ALLANNAH DANIELS: Well I normally go to bed at 11:00, but I definitely can't get to sleep until maybe 1:00am.

PETER OVERTON: Like many teenagers, 15-year-old Allannah goes to sleep late and can't get out of bed in the morning.

ALLANNAH DANIELS: Every night I'm frustrated and I think to myself "just go to sleep, it's not that hard, "just close your eyes and go to sleep." But I can't, and I try but it doesn't work. So I'm either tossing and turning or thinking about something or messaging my friends.

PETER OVERTON: Gee, you're not in a good place, are you?

ALLANNAH DANIELS: No! ( ALARM CLOCK BEEPS ) SHARON DANIELS: Allannah! C'mon, were going to be late! Hurry up!

PETER OVERTON: Allannah's mum Sharon wages a battle every morning that many parents know all too well.

SHARON DANIELS: C'mon Allannah we're leaving in 5 minutes! Hurry up, we're going to be late! She used to be the first up in the morning. And she would be downstairs and ready for an hour before it was time for her to go to school because she never wanted to be late. Lock the door!

ALLANNAH DANIELS: I did!

PETER OVERTON: But science is discovering that kids like Allannah aren't just lazy or rebellious. Who feels tired right now, feels they need more sleep? Everyone! It's now clear that teenagers' body clocks are set on a different sleep cycle to the rest of us. They get tired much later and need to sleep longer but, unfortunately, school timetables don't allow for that. What do you do when the alarm goes off?

STUDENT: Press the snooze button.

PETER OVERTON: How many teenagers have sleeping problems?

DR SARAH BLUNDEN: Adolescents are one of the most sleep deprived groups of our community. They are seriously sleep deprived. What's important for you guys is you really need 9.25hrs sleep.

PETER OVERTON: Adolescent sleep expert Dr Sarah Blunden says this dire lack of sleep is seriously harming our teenagers' ability to learn.

DR SARAH BLUNDEN: We believe that parts of our sleep are actually important for consolidation of memory. In fact, if we don't get those particular parts of sleep you don't remember things as well. You can't consolidate your information. You also have major problems with your behaviour. You're more likely to be depressed, more likely to have mood problems, more likely to be aggressive and irritable and take risks more often.

PETER OVERTON: To most of us, the answer to this epidemic is pretty obvious. But in the rush and scramble of daily life, we're forgetting one of the simplest and most important ways to stay healthy and even alive.

DR DREW DAWSON: I think people wear lack of sleep as a badge of honour because of what they think that signals to other people in the community. If I'm not getting much sleep it means I'm hard working, that I'm motivated, that I'm more likely to succeed. Now we know the research tells us exactly the opposite to that.

COURTNEY SEMMLER: It just affects everything. You just don't realise.

PETER OVERTON: Having gone through this, do you think you'll now get more sleep?

COURTNEY SEMMLER: Yes! And I will try and get as much sleep as I can, I don't ever want to miss my sleep again.