March 19, 2018
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GO TO BED!
Sleeping less than six hours a night is as bad as binge drinking and severely damages your brain, study finds.
- Sleep deprivation raises risk of obesity, depression, heart attacks and strokes
- The most worrying consequences are rooted in the brain, research suggests
- Sleep deprivation is linked with acute cognitive impairment, researchers found
- Driving while sleep deprived could be as dangerous as driving when drunk
Regularly getting less than six hours sleep a night could cause the same long-term damage as alcohol abuse, according to a worrying new study. For the body, sleep deprivation results in increased risk of obesity, depression, heart attacks and strokes - causing experts to dub it the 'modern ill'.
However, the most worrying consequences are rooted in the brain and new research suggests the effects are far more destructive than previously thought. Research suggests that being awake for 18 hours results in the same cognitive impairment people get from being drunk. This is so severe that driving while sleep deprived could be as dangerous as driving when drunk, researchers found.
Researchers from Quebec-based digital health company Medisys found people who regularly got less than six hours of sleep a night could suffer terrible cumulative health effects to which they may be oblivious. Although the odd night sleeping just six hours or less will not have a significant effect, frequently not sleeping enough is very dangerous, researchers found.
Sleep affects hunger hormones. Sleep plays an important role in regulating the hormones that influence hunger (ghrelin, cortisol, and leptin) that's why sleep deprivation increases appetite and leads to overeating and weight gain, neuroscientist Dr Adrian Owen at Western University, who also works with Medisys, told Digital Journal.
Researchers found your brain becomes less stable for the longer you remain wake - which reduces your attention, ability to focus and use your brain on specific tasks.
The brain 'eats' itself. The news comes on the heels of research that showed having too little sleep causes the brain to eat itself if it hasn't had enough sleep. In May researchers studied lab mice, and found that 'clean-up' cells were more active in their brains when they were sleep-deprived. The cells, known as astrocytes, act like mini Hoovers in the brain, sweeping up cells as the brain's connections become weak and break apart. We show for the first time that portions of synapses are literally eaten by astrocytes because of sleep loss, lead author Michele Bellesi told New Scientist.
According to the research team at Italy's Marche Polytechnic University, the seemingly alarming process is actually a positive thing. They [our synpases] are like old pieces of furniture,' Bellesi said. And so [they] probably need more attention and cleaning. But he added that sleep-deprived brains showed ominous signs of activity that leads to Alzheimer's. In sleep-deprived mice, brain cells called microglials were more active. We already know that sustained microglial activation has been observed in Alzheimer's and other forms of neurodegeneration,' Michele said.
More than half of all adults in the UK struggle to nod off, with 40 per cent saying they regularly get just six hours sleep - considerably less than the recommended seven to nine.
From another article
We’re often told that eight hours is the optimum healthy amount of sleep. But new research suggests this is a misconception. Penn State researchers have suggested that 8.5 hours of sleep is the new eight hours. Why the extra 30 minutes? Because healthy sleepers spend about 90 percent of their time in bed actually sleeping. This means even if you’re in bed eight hours before your alarm is scheduled to go off, you’ll probably get closer to seven hours of actual sleep.
Many of us tend to “catch up” on our sleep on the weekend — cringing our way out of bed for work in the morning and then sleeping in to make up for it on Saturday and Sunday. According to the researchers, this isn’t ideal — and you may not even realize what you’re truly capable of. “That’s like the fish and the fishbowl phenomenon: The fish doesn’t know that he’s in the fishbowl, nonetheless that he’s in water... when you’re sleep-deprived, research has shown that you’re really bad at being able to tell that you’re sleep-deprived. A lot of this has to do with stress in our environment and our external need to work all the time. This is what’s driving the fact that we’re sleeping so poorly nowadays.”
A good way to see how much sleep you really need is to try to stick to your normal bedtime while on holidays, and see what time you wake up. “With no stressors or time to get up, you’ll just fall into a natural pattern, and that’s probably how much sleep you actually need,” Gartenberg said.
Here are 10 more tips to help boost your sleep quality.
1. Keep to a sleep schedule.
If you need eight hours to feel “normal” then sticking to a regular bedtime and getting up on time is a must. A couple of late nights can quickly add to your sleep debt, which is best paid off by going to bed 20 minutes earlier, rather than sleeping in.
2. Prepare your brain for sleep.
Allow about 90 minutes to wind down with a hot bath, a relaxation routine and unplug from your technology. The blue light emitted by our screens fools the brain into thinking it’s still daytime.
While it’s possible to change to a yellow backlight, continuing to engage with our laptops and phones means we are not allowing our brain time to quiet down to be ready for sleep.
3. Learn to meditate.
When practiced regularly, meditation has been shown to improve sleep.
4. Keep the bedroom for sleep and sex only.
That means no TV or Netflix binges in bed, though reading using a warm light is OK. Having sex helps — it makes us feel more relaxed and sleepy through the extra prolactin released after orgasm.
5. Cut the nightcap.
While alcohol helps us relax and drop off to sleep, it’s been shown to disturb our sleep pattern causing us to wake more often during the night.
6. Avoid other stimulants such as caffeine or smoking.
Caffeine has a half-life of six hours, so that cup of coffee drunk at 4 p.m. in the afternoon means 50 percent of the caffeine is still in your system at 10 p.m. Caffeine competes with adenosine, a naturally occurring brain chemical that drives sleep.
7. Be active enough during the day.
People who exercise regularly find their sleep quality improves.
8. Create the perfect sleep environment.
Keep your bedroom cool between 66-70 degrees Fahrenheit, dark and quiet. Avoid putting a sheet between you and the comforter as it reduces the breathability of the quilt and can make you feel too hot.
9. Choose your sleeping partner carefully.
You may love your pet, but sleeping with them is not recommended. As for your other partner, if they snore, have restless legs or sleep apnea, a gentle prod to encourage them to get their sleep will help you get a better night’s sleep too.
10. Still can’t sleep?
Rather than fretting, it’s better to get up, make yourself a warm milky drink — the tryptophan helps induce sleep — or camomile tea, and undertake an activity that will keep you occupied but not overstimulated until that next surge of sleepiness revisits and you can go back to bed.
