Zzzz's
Missed it by a about a week. January 3rd. Festival of Sleep Day. What?? Never heard of it? (neither had I) But we all crave this thing we call sleep, consciously or not, so much so that sleep-deprivation is often used as a tool of torture (and can seem like such on those nights when we can't fall asleep). Stuck awake we become envious of the person next to us sleeping soundly. What's up with that? Some people can fall asleep almost immediately while others seem to take forever to dose off no matter how tired, as if sleep were a giant freighter carefully and ploddingly docking for the night. Hurry up! I covered a bit of this a few years ago in a post but much seems to have changed in the world of sleep since then...some sites such as that of Prevention even emphasizing natural ways to help us drift off (one surprise was its suggestion to stop smoking, saying: Nicotine is a stimulant, so it prevents you from falling asleep. Plus,
many smokers experience withdrawal pangs at night. Smokers are 4 times
more likely not to feel as well rested after a night's sleep than
nonsmokers, studies show, and smoking exacerbates sleep apnea and other
breathing disorders, which can also stop you from getting a good night's
rest. Don't worry that quitting will keep you up nights too: That
effect passes in about 3 nights, says Lisa Shives, MD, sleep expert and
founder of Northshore Sleep Medicine).
Most of us twitch and move as surely as our dogs when we sleep, not believing that we do since we appear to awaken in what seems to be about the same position as when we started. And we dream extensively, even those who swear that they never dream, the REM deep sleep pattern taking up to 25% of our sleep hours, periods when our minds are actually and ironically more active as our bodies physically lock down and our repair and diagnostic systems are free from the wakeful duties of movement and decision-making. But what is sleep and what is science discovering about it? As complicated as sleep can be there seems to remain the age-old question of why can't I sleep (perhaps the question is more correctly asking why can't I sleep "soundly and throughout the night").
Here are a few quick excerpts from the more-detailed explanation of how sleep is defined as written in Wikipedia: During sleep, most systems in an animal are in an anabolic state, building up the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems...Sleep is sometimes confused with unconsciousness, but is quite different in terms of thought process...There is a greater amount of deep sleep (stage N3) earlier in the night, while the proportion of REM sleep increases in the two cycles just before natural awakening...Sleep proceeds in cycles of NREM and REM, normally in that order and usually four or five of them per night...The siesta habit has recently been associated with a 37% reduction in coronary mortality, possibly due to reduced cardiovascular stress mediated by daytime sleep...animal hypnosis or death feigning, functions as the last line of defense against an attacking predator and consists of the total immobilization of the animal: the animal appears dead (cf. "playing possum"). The neurophysiology and phenomenology of this reaction show striking similarities to REM sleep, a fact which betrays a deep evolutionary kinship. The fact that birds and mammals are the only known animals to exhibit REM and NREM sleep indicates a common trait before divergence. The different stages of REM and NREM sleep was not discovered until 1953.
Jump to circadian rhythms, that part of our brain that regulates how we respond to light and darkness and partially explaining the reasoning behind changing time zones and when we wake up and grow sleepy, something described medically by Wikipedia as: ...a dense cluster of neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a part of the brain directly above the optic chiasm, where the optic nerves cross on their paths from the two eyes to the visual cortex. This important time "clock" can be manipulated by alarms and work patterns as well as equatorial positioning (say at the magnetic poles where there are periods of 23-hour darkness/light)...and let's not forget fitness trackers (one of my friends often notes that while she feels rested, her Fit Bit has told her that she had a fitful sleep and actually awakened ten times during the night). Yet this shifting of on-off sleep patterns happens in the NREM period sometimes as often as four time per second (shown in the graph which chronicles one second periods).
Another topic came up in an article from Scientific American Mind, that of half-sleep, how "birds and aquatic mammals such as dolphins and whales display the remarkable phenomenon of unihemisphere slow-wave sleep: one half of their brain is awake, including an open eye, and the other half shows electrical signatures of sleep." Labeled as "likely a protective mechanism," scientists are now using that behavior to partly explain our own unsettled behavior when in a new bed (such as when staying in a hotel), a part of us seeming to be "on alert" much as Hollywood portrays soldiers and covert agents but something more vividly shown in the graph results below which tracked the sleeping-awake patterns of bottlenose dolphins.
And yet another new field now emerging is that of studying sleep in women. Sounds superfluous but a high percentage of studies in the field of sleep science have only been tested on men and the results thus becoming into a generality. As it's turning out, the sexes are quite different. Said another piece in the same magazine: Statistics suggest that men are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed in youth or middle age with obstructive sleep apnea—a disorder characterized by periodic stops and starts in breathing during sleep...Even when women do undergo sleep testing, they still may not be properly diagnosed. Apnea tends to cluster during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep in women, whereas male apnea is not as stage-specific, Won (Christine Won, director of the Women's Sleep Health Program at the Yale School of Medicine) explains. Because apnea is diagnosed by calculating an average index of breathing issues during a total night's sleep—an approach that was, again, built on studies involving men—the severity of women's REM-focused apnea often gets diluted, which is especially worrying considering the results of a 2015 study that found that women with sleep apnea are at an increased risk for heart failure and death as compared with men.
The result of all this studying has been a slew of courses and products to help you sleep, from $150 pillows to books by Arianna Huffington (which she wrote after collapsing from exhaustion and breaking her cheekbone). As she writes in her book: The very notion of viewing all nighters as a badge of honor is a symptom of our sleep crisis and an indicator of just how deeply the glamorization of sleep deprivation is embedded in our culture. Everywhere you turn, sleep deprivation is celebrated, from "You snooze, you lose" to highly burned-out people boasting, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Add to all of this the host of pharmaceuticals out there from the hormonal melatonin (a caution since "natural" melatonin is still made from the brains of cows, something that was once discouraged during the mad-cow crisis) to synthetics such as Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) medications (Ambien, Lunesta, which target sleep control parts of the brain), Benzodiazepines (Ativan, Valium, and others which are classified as tranquilizers) and the newer Remelteon which targets our circadian clock. And now add to this our technology...
Turns out that light, specifically the spectrum of 480 nanometers which is considered a short wavelength, triggers our brain to cut the production of melatonin. This wavelength basically is the light of morning, something our retinas relay to our brains even when we're asleep (think blackout curtains and sleep masks). Scientists now studying such wavelengths have found that our phones and tablets and such tend to operate on this wavelength. Said an article in Discover magazine: One 2014 study found sleep lab subjects who read from an iPad before bed saw nighttime melatonin levels plummet 55 percent after five days (paper book readers saw no reductions). They also took longer to fall asleep, had less REM-sleep and were groggy in the morning.
Phew, it's a lot to take in and this was all just a glimpse of what's out there being studied. But if this all sounds simply exhausting, the best advice might be to just sleep on it (if you can). And don't worry about having missed that festival of sleep as you'll have another chance. February 28th is National Public Sleeping Day (really??). Sweet dreams.
Most of us twitch and move as surely as our dogs when we sleep, not believing that we do since we appear to awaken in what seems to be about the same position as when we started. And we dream extensively, even those who swear that they never dream, the REM deep sleep pattern taking up to 25% of our sleep hours, periods when our minds are actually and ironically more active as our bodies physically lock down and our repair and diagnostic systems are free from the wakeful duties of movement and decision-making. But what is sleep and what is science discovering about it? As complicated as sleep can be there seems to remain the age-old question of why can't I sleep (perhaps the question is more correctly asking why can't I sleep "soundly and throughout the night").
Here are a few quick excerpts from the more-detailed explanation of how sleep is defined as written in Wikipedia: During sleep, most systems in an animal are in an anabolic state, building up the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems...Sleep is sometimes confused with unconsciousness, but is quite different in terms of thought process...There is a greater amount of deep sleep (stage N3) earlier in the night, while the proportion of REM sleep increases in the two cycles just before natural awakening...Sleep proceeds in cycles of NREM and REM, normally in that order and usually four or five of them per night...The siesta habit has recently been associated with a 37% reduction in coronary mortality, possibly due to reduced cardiovascular stress mediated by daytime sleep...animal hypnosis or death feigning, functions as the last line of defense against an attacking predator and consists of the total immobilization of the animal: the animal appears dead (cf. "playing possum"). The neurophysiology and phenomenology of this reaction show striking similarities to REM sleep, a fact which betrays a deep evolutionary kinship. The fact that birds and mammals are the only known animals to exhibit REM and NREM sleep indicates a common trait before divergence. The different stages of REM and NREM sleep was not discovered until 1953.
 | |
Jump to circadian rhythms, that part of our brain that regulates how we respond to light and darkness and partially explaining the reasoning behind changing time zones and when we wake up and grow sleepy, something described medically by Wikipedia as: ...a dense cluster of neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a part of the brain directly above the optic chiasm, where the optic nerves cross on their paths from the two eyes to the visual cortex. This important time "clock" can be manipulated by alarms and work patterns as well as equatorial positioning (say at the magnetic poles where there are periods of 23-hour darkness/light)...and let's not forget fitness trackers (one of my friends often notes that while she feels rested, her Fit Bit has told her that she had a fitful sleep and actually awakened ten times during the night). Yet this shifting of on-off sleep patterns happens in the NREM period sometimes as often as four time per second (shown in the graph which chronicles one second periods).
 |
| Graph from Scientific American Mind 09/2016 and credited to: “DREAMING AND THE BRAIN: FROM PHENOMENOLOGY TO NEUROPHYSIOLOGY,” BY YUVAL NIR AND GIULIO TONONI, IN TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES, VOL. 14, NO. 2; FEBRUARY 2010 |
Another topic came up in an article from Scientific American Mind, that of half-sleep, how "birds and aquatic mammals such as dolphins and whales display the remarkable phenomenon of unihemisphere slow-wave sleep: one half of their brain is awake, including an open eye, and the other half shows electrical signatures of sleep." Labeled as "likely a protective mechanism," scientists are now using that behavior to partly explain our own unsettled behavior when in a new bed (such as when staying in a hotel), a part of us seeming to be "on alert" much as Hollywood portrays soldiers and covert agents but something more vividly shown in the graph results below which tracked the sleeping-awake patterns of bottlenose dolphins.
 | |
| Also from Scientific American Mind and credited to: NATALIA PRYANISHNIKOVA Alamy (dolphins); FROM “CETACEAN SLEEP: AN UNUSUAL FORM OF MAMMALIAN SLEEP,” BY OLEG I. LYAMIN ET AL., IN NEUROSCIENCE & BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS, VOL. 32, NO. 8; OCTOBER 2008 (EEG activity) |
And yet another new field now emerging is that of studying sleep in women. Sounds superfluous but a high percentage of studies in the field of sleep science have only been tested on men and the results thus becoming into a generality. As it's turning out, the sexes are quite different. Said another piece in the same magazine: Statistics suggest that men are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed in youth or middle age with obstructive sleep apnea—a disorder characterized by periodic stops and starts in breathing during sleep...Even when women do undergo sleep testing, they still may not be properly diagnosed. Apnea tends to cluster during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep in women, whereas male apnea is not as stage-specific, Won (Christine Won, director of the Women's Sleep Health Program at the Yale School of Medicine) explains. Because apnea is diagnosed by calculating an average index of breathing issues during a total night's sleep—an approach that was, again, built on studies involving men—the severity of women's REM-focused apnea often gets diluted, which is especially worrying considering the results of a 2015 study that found that women with sleep apnea are at an increased risk for heart failure and death as compared with men.
The result of all this studying has been a slew of courses and products to help you sleep, from $150 pillows to books by Arianna Huffington (which she wrote after collapsing from exhaustion and breaking her cheekbone). As she writes in her book: The very notion of viewing all nighters as a badge of honor is a symptom of our sleep crisis and an indicator of just how deeply the glamorization of sleep deprivation is embedded in our culture. Everywhere you turn, sleep deprivation is celebrated, from "You snooze, you lose" to highly burned-out people boasting, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Add to all of this the host of pharmaceuticals out there from the hormonal melatonin (a caution since "natural" melatonin is still made from the brains of cows, something that was once discouraged during the mad-cow crisis) to synthetics such as Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) medications (Ambien, Lunesta, which target sleep control parts of the brain), Benzodiazepines (Ativan, Valium, and others which are classified as tranquilizers) and the newer Remelteon which targets our circadian clock. And now add to this our technology...
Turns out that light, specifically the spectrum of 480 nanometers which is considered a short wavelength, triggers our brain to cut the production of melatonin. This wavelength basically is the light of morning, something our retinas relay to our brains even when we're asleep (think blackout curtains and sleep masks). Scientists now studying such wavelengths have found that our phones and tablets and such tend to operate on this wavelength. Said an article in Discover magazine: One 2014 study found sleep lab subjects who read from an iPad before bed saw nighttime melatonin levels plummet 55 percent after five days (paper book readers saw no reductions). They also took longer to fall asleep, had less REM-sleep and were groggy in the morning.
Phew, it's a lot to take in and this was all just a glimpse of what's out there being studied. But if this all sounds simply exhausting, the best advice might be to just sleep on it (if you can). And don't worry about having missed that festival of sleep as you'll have another chance. February 28th is National Public Sleeping Day (really??). Sweet dreams.
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