Sleep for Your Life

We sleep every night — every one of us — or at least we need to. But sleep remains a strange and mysterious “place.”

After all, we are not actually “there” to witness it or describe it. And it has only been the subject of serious research in the past 60 years or so. Not surprisingly, there is quite a bit about sleep we don’t yet know.

Check out these tidbits for good health and long life.

Sleep Deprivation is Truly Not Good
You’ve heard it before (probably from your mother) but now it’s time to get blunt. Sleep deprivation, imposed in a laboratory, can end the life of a rat in 11-23 days.

Before dying, the rats appeared debilitated, developed sores on their tails and paws, and lost weight in spite of increased food intake. No anatomical reason for their death has been identified.

The most well-known case of death from lack of sleep in man is that Michael Corke, an Illinois music teacher, who had fatal familial insomnia and died after six months of not sleeping.

Science has confirmed that sleeping consistently less than six hours a night can shorten your life expectancy. A study in Italy and published in the Journal Sleep reported that sleeping less than six hours a night makes you 12 percent more likely to die prematurely than someone who sleeps up to eight hours. The moral is if you don’t sleep enough now, you may not get the chance to catch up later.

Edison Invented the 8-Hour Sleep Night
Well, not exactly. Thomas Edison invented hundreds of things that changed the way we do things every day. Among his greatest contributions is the light bulb. Once this small orb became popularly available, the boundary between day and night began to blur.

When “daily” activities were no longer restricted to daylight hours, men and women began to stay up later than they had before and patterns of human sleep began to change. Historian Roger Ekirch has pointed out that in the eons before the proliferation of artificial light, humans divided their sleep into two segments at night. As noted in the Canterbury Tales, the first sleep began not long after the sun went down and ended in the wee hours of the morning.

Once a person woke up, he or she would stay awake for an hour or more. This time would be an opportunity to stoke the fire, talk, plan, make love, pray or contemplate their dreams. In some areas folks would actually dress and go out to visit with nearby neighbors.

A research experiment at the National Institute of Mental Health showed that even modern people, used to sleeping eight-hour blocks every night, would drift into this biphasic sort of sleep if they were deprived of artificial light for a few weeks. Many people may have felt this for themselves as they’ve noticed a small shift in their sleeping patterns when they go camping and sleep under the stars for several nights.

Edison may not have invented our modern-day sleep habits, but his light bulb has most certainly shaped them.

The ‘I’ is for ‘I-nsomnia’
Many of us are addicted to our electronic extensions. Checking email and social posts several times a day (an hour?!) is now the norm. In fact, it’s often the last thing we do before calling it a night. But that late-night phone or tablet viewing just may be what’s keeping you from enjoying sound sleep.

Even older iPhones emit more than 200 lux and e-screens are especially heavy in blue light.

Our internal clock — the one that tells us when to sleep and when to wake up — is absolutely dependent on light cues. The onset of dim light signals the release of the sleep hormone melatonin, and bright light, especially in the blue light spectrum, shuts it off again. The brightness of ambient light at sunrise on a clear day is about 400 lux. Our body clock can be thrown off by exposure to light with brightness as little as 8 lux. Even older iPhones emit morethan 200 lux and e-screens are especially heavy in blue light.

To reduce the sleep-altering effects of screen light, some experts recommend the use of blue light blocking glasses or screen covers any time after the natural sunset. This, combined with dim room light, can help the brain maintain more normal melatonin rhythms. Even with the use of blue-blocking technology, the best plan for healthy sleep is to power off all electronics including televisions, phones, readers and tablets at least one hour before sleep time, and keep them off until after waking in the morning.

I’ll Have the Szechuan Beef with a Side of Sleeplessness
We’ve all heard that we should not eat a big meal right before bedtime, but did you know that what we eat can influence our sleep as well?

It is no surprise that spicy meals or tons of tomatoes, onions and garlic may lead to indigestion that interferes with quiet sleep. Some other favorite foods, though, can also make it hard to fall asleep. We know about the caffeine in espresso, but chocolate, ginger and green tea all have stimulant effects that may be hard to overcome for a few hours. Even a nice lean filet mignon may prevent a restful snooze as the body has to spend concentrated time digesting the heavy protein load before yielding to good sleep.

Lastly, that second glass of wine at dessert or the hot toddy at bedtime may make you feel warm and drowsy, but it may also be the reason you wake up at 1 a.m. and lay awake for an hour or more before finally drifting off again.

On the other hand, there is some evidence that complex carbohydrates in the evening can encourage deep, even sleep, as can foods with high tryptophan content. With this in mind, a good choice for the nighttime meal may be a small turkey and cheese sandwich on whole grain bread along with a glass of soy milk. Other high-tryptophan foods include seeds, nuts, tofu, fish and beans.

Sleep Cleans the Brain
Consider the simple elegance of a big city’s trash hauling system. The garbage produced by the business day piles up in the cans on the sidewalks and the trucks come through at night and clean it all away. Each morning dawns fresh and sparkling again. No one thinks much about the trucks or the trash men, but if they miss one pick up or go on strike, the whole city can come to a grimy, gummy halt in short order.

Scientists have long been unsure about the real reason we, and nearly every breathing thing, needs to sleep. We can see the outward effects of sleep deprivation, though — poor cognition, slowed reaction times, impaired organ function and eventually death. But what is it, exactly, about sleep that prevents these awful outcomes?

Researchers for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and elsewhere are starting to think they may have an answer. And it’s not unlike our unsung trash hauling heroes…

Without adequate sleep on a regular basis this opportunity to clean up our neurological streets and alleyways may be lost.

According to Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, sleep changes the cellular structure of the brain itself. During sleep a special plumbing system opens and fluid flows rapidly through the brain, possibly clearing away toxic molecules that accumulate during the waking activity.

Without adequate sleep on a regular basis this opportunity to clean up our neurological streets and alleyways may be lost. As the molecular “trash” piles up, the results may include a greater incidence of short-term functional deficits such as memory loss and lack of coordination. Long term consequences such as Alzheimer’s disease have also been associated with the accumulation of amyloid deposits that may be reduced by the nightly ritual of cleansing the brain.

Another good reason to welcome both the Sand Man and the Trash Man each night.