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What's Up Docs?

Daily Dose: Sleep Deprivation

What's Up Docs?

BBC

Health & Fitness, Nature, Science

4.4659 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this Daily Dose, Chris and Xand are returning to their episode on sleep with Professor of Circadian Neuroscience, Russell Foster. As a sleep expert, Russell explained why we can perhaps relax a bit when it comes to sleep, especially when it comes to losing some from time to time.

Daily Doses of expert wisdom from previous episodes will be dropping each weekday throughout January (except Tuesdays). You'll find them in the What’s Up Docs? feed on BBC Sounds, alongside all the main episodes of the podcast.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Morning, Chris. How are you doing today? I'm more tired than you. Don't play this card. I just played it. Here we go. No, go and do it. Say what you always say. Slect on the floor. The baby makes you sleep on the floor. You're in charge. You're the parent. I'm yours. I have two under two. They don't make me sleep on the floor.

0:21.5

She goes to this. She goes to this. She goes, Daddy floor. Daddy lie down. Daddy floor lie down.

0:27.8

And then she reaches out so I lie there and I can off and dose off. And then to fall asleep, what she likes to do is play with my face. And she likes to stick a thumb right in my eyeball.

0:37.2

It's not a competition.

0:38.4

If it was, I would win.

0:44.2

Well, Zand, what better condition could we be in to look back at our episode on sleep deprivation

0:49.9

with the wonderful friend of the show, Professor Russell Foster from Oxford University.

0:54.5

I've got to say, every time I'm tired, so all the time.

0:58.3

Yes. I think about Russell. He was fantastic.

1:01.2

He lives fully rent-free in my brain.

1:04.1

He was fantastic in explaining why we can relax a bit when it comes to sleep or sleep deprivation.

1:11.2

The idea that we have to have this golden eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is, I think, misleading.

1:18.9

And part of the reason I wrote Lifetime, I was absolutely fed up with the sergeant majors of sleep, screaming,

1:24.3

you know, you must do this, you can't do that, based on very little science.

1:29.8

So we have historical...

1:30.8

Is that your...

1:31.6

The sergeant majors of sleep is an incredibly funny idea.

1:34.6

Is that your idea?

1:36.2

I think so.

1:37.3

Oh, that's so nice.

1:38.9

You're the people screaming at you.

1:40.2

Screaming it.

...

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