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Sleep Deprivation

One of the biggest complaints that doctors hear is that their patients feel tired all the time. So common that it even has its own doctor's acronym: TATT. So two pairs of twins are going to find out if there is a way to combat exhaustion with two popular sleep regimes. First, Hugo and Tina are testing the traditional technique - getting an early night. Sleep scientists call it sleep banking and the idea is that when you are tired, you are running a 'sleep debt'. To overcome tiredness you need to pay back that debt back by getting more sleep than you usually do. But it goes further than this - if you know that in the future you will feel tired, sleep banking can let you store up excess sleep for use later on. It is a controversial theory that our twins are going to test out in one of the most extreme experiments of the series - that is going to require them to stay awake for close to 36 hours. Meanwhile their identical twin siblings will also experience the same 36-hour challenge but will be testing a technique popular with pilots, truckers and doctors - power-napping. The theory is that a 20-minute micro-sleep can give the brain sufficient rest that the onset of tiredness can be kept at bay. But will it work? Once the challenge is over, the tests can begin. A lack of sleep affects risk taking, communication, memory, coordination and reaction time, so Chris and Xand have found the ultimate way to test everything - in a 747 simulator. All our sleep-deprived twins must attempt to land a 747 while being talked in by air-traffic control. As their tiredness levels get dangerously high, will either regime be able to combat exhaustion or will all our twins crash and burn? Next is a story about the future of learning where Chris and Xand put their own identical twin bodies on the line to learn a new skill pitting real-world learning against the virtual world. Astronauts, engineers and even sports-stars are now training using virtual reality and it is touted a

English
  • Originally Aired January 9, 2019
  • Runtime 30 minutes
  • Production Code b0by3f5p
  • Network BBC Two
  • Created January 9, 2019 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified January 9, 2019 by
    Administrator admin