Get Better Sleep

Create the Life You Want The goal for the vast majority of us is to live for a long time, and to enjoy life to the greatest degree possible during that time. For ease, we’ll talk about these things as lifespan (Are you alive?) and healthspan (Are you actually living while alive?). Unfortunately, there is a disparity between these terms, which is why we want to differentiate them. It is safe to say that we all know someone who has gotten to a point that they are still alive (not yet deceased), but they aren’t necessarily living. They’re limited in the physical aspects of what they can do, the cognitive rigor they can engage in, or are somewhat limited in the relationships they have (or have lost). They can’t fully participate in life. Their health span stopped long before their lifespan. Our objective over the coming weeks and months will be to share some of the most impactful ways in which we can positively affect either lifespan or healthspan, and usually these will affect both simultaneously. Practical Solutions to Live Better, and Longer After a couple decades in practice, there are a few key changes that people can make that can have tremendous impact on their physical and cognitive health, capacity to heal, and enjoyment of life. We’re going to tackle some of the big ones, in basic terms and usable strategies, so that we can hopefully help a bunch of people to make positive changes that will affect their lives and that of the people around them.  The first few topics we will discuss are vital and fundamental components to a long, active and healthy life: sleep, nutrition, and challenging your body to move.  In the Sleep, Eat, Move trilogy, we’ll dig in to why these things are important, what happens if you ignore these concepts, and how you can practically make changes in these areas that will improve your quality of life.   Why Sleep? We are talking about sleep first because it is so often overlooked as a health-related concept or strategy in healing. All studied species on the planet engage in sleep (or a sleep-like state), and 70+ years of sleep research has clearly delineated the dramatic effects quality and quantity of sleep has on the body. It is an unfortunate mystery why it is so often forgotten, ignored, or disregarded when we evaluate the overall health status of a person.  Sleep is a funny thing, in that all species engage in this activity which makes them less responsive to our environments, and therefore less protected from predators (while essentially unconscious). Additionally, sleep takes up so much valuable time from important tasks of seeking food, shelter and reproduction. Why on Earth would we just shut down the body for 1/3 of our lives? It would seem counterintuitive that evolution wouldn’t have phased it out by now (if there weren’t such phenomenal benefits!).   You’re Not Just Knocked Out Part of this disconnect and misunderstanding of the importance of sleep is that we’ve long considered it a passive process. “Shut down, relax, recover, knock-off, turn off” are all common ways of thinking about the time we spend asleep. We talk about it like a passive event where bodily activity ceases. After all, that’s what happens when we put our computers to “sleep”, right? It turns out, sleep as a passive activity is grossly inaccurate. It is, after all, what does happen during sleep that gives it its fundamental value. It is an active, biological process. Dr. Matthew Walker, PhD, succinctly describes sleep as “the single most effective thing we can do to reset brain and body health each day.”  That bold statement is why we chose to put this topic first in our series.  Consequence of Sleep Deficits Simply stated: if you don’t get the sleep you need, bad things happen to your body and brain.  According to repeated research findings, consistently getting inadequate sleep quantity or quality is associated with: increased cancer risk (getting 4-5 hours of sleep per night reduces cancer fighting natural killer T-cell function by 70% decreased immune function (lower white blood cell production and slower immune response) mood changes, emotional volatility, and irritability increased inflammation, more sensitive to pain, and slower healing and recovery (lower protein synthesis and growth hormone release) metabolic dysfunction and diabetes – altered glucose metabolism more car accidents (getting only 5 hours of sleep per night for a week reduces cognitive function the same extent that alcohol intoxication does) decreased ability to focus  increased sports injuries increased odds of obesity memory loss and increased risk of dementia hormone disruption    Lack of sleep not only disrupts the quality of your life, but can actually shorten your life.    So, What Exactly Happens During Sleep That is so Important? As mentioned, sleep is not a passive process. There are hundreds of active processes going on in the body to clean, repair, rebuild and grow your body and brain while you sleep. Many of these processes only happen when you sleep, and some of them only during specific stages of sleep. When you don’t sleep enough, or well enough, these cleaning, healing, growth and repair processes lag, and the functions of your body and brain suffer.  Many times, these reductions in performance and health aren’t noticeable. We get away with a little bit more for a little bit longer when we are young as well. As time goes by, these losses add up, and even though we may be used to it, significant deficits arise.     Stages of Sleep While we are asleep, the brain demonstrates different levels of activity corresponding to its function at that time, and the different stages of sleep are associated with those changes. Each stage is important, and has different bodily processes that are evident or prominent during those times.  Brain scans of patients while awake and during Deep NREM and REM sleep are shown here, from Dr. Matthew Walker’s book, Why We Sleep.