lifestyle

Don’t Drive Sleepy

If I’ve learned anything from the book The Promise of Sleep by Dr. William Dement it is to never drive while sleepy. While one may think that one can stay away, the book gives many examples of cases where the driver was not able to (despite thinking that they were okay).

Even when one goes to bed at night, it is quite difficult to predict the exact moment we fall asleep. It just happens and it is very fast (like a light switch). There may not be much warning when that switch is flipped. This is exactly what can happen when you drive sleepy. One moment you are awake, and the next moment you are not.

Dr. Demet gives plenty of example of sleep-deprived drivers getting in terrible accidents (some even accidentally killing their passenger spouse).

He writes …

“If you remember nothing else from this book, you must remember these stories and the extremely important principle they are intended to illustrate.”

and also …

“… one very simple life-saving principle should be embraced as gospel truth: If you become drowsy at any time during the day, you have a sizable sleep debt and you should resolve to be cautious in hazardous situations.” [page 226]

He is referring to driving as a chief among these “hazardous situation”.

For himself, he writes …

“When I’m driving and I begin to feel the desire for the delicious relief of falling asleep, I immediately feel intense terror and alarm. It is as if someone has pointed a gun to my head. The indelible memories of stories and photographs of dead children on the highway flash through my mind. I have vowed that I will never be the cause of such an accident. I always pull over and take a nap” [page 228]

Sleep better predictor of longevity than diet or exercise?

This may sound surprising to most. It was surprising to me when I first read it. But on the front-cover flap of the Dr. William Dement’s book “The Promise of Sleep: A pioneer in sleep medicine explores the vital connection between health, happiness, and a good night’s sleep” (not sure why they make book titles so long), it says …

“Healthful sleep has been empirically proven to be the single most important factor in predicting longevity, more influential than diet, exercise, or heredity.”

At first I might think that diet comes first, second is exercise, and third is sleep. But that’s what the book says. I would have like to see the study, but didn’t see it. So I don’t know how valid that study is.

However, I do believe that most people under estimate the importance of sleep.

Night time routines of some health experts

Let’s see if we can learn how to optimize sleep based on the night time routines of some health experts.

In the “Day in the Life of Dr. Mercola” video …

He says that he wakes up anywhere from 4:30am to 6:30am. He turns off his computer at 7pm. When sun goes down, he wears orange glasses that blocks out blue-light. Blue light is light of the day and it hampers melatonin production. He also turns off the WiFi and shuts down the electricity to his bedroom. Incidentally, he mentions he walks about 8 miles a day.

To learn about concerns of EMF’s effect on sleep, there are plenty of articles, here is just one. Dr. Jack Kruse is another resource on EMF effects. He also turns off the electricity to bedroom and sleeps on the Magnetico Sleep Pad. He doesn’t watch TV after dark, doesn’t use florescent light. And he uses Amber glasses to block blue-light. [reference] He uses spring water. Bedroom pitch dark. He gets out in the sun. No microwave in his house. Cold temperature simulates melatonin production.

Suzanne Somers, author of Tox-Sick, says she sleeps 8 hours and take melatonin every night. She also advocates epsom salt bath as a sleep aid.

Go to be the same time every night

This is another one of those sleep hygiene that’s been mentioned just about everywhere. Some places say to sleep and wake the same time every night. But an more appropriate rule is to go to bed at the same time every night and then you fall asleep when you fall asleep. And you wake up when you naturally wake up. It would be silly to set an alarm to wake you up when it is the weekend and you need as much sleep as possible.

Your body runs on a 24-hour cycle pattern. When you follow the pattern of going to be at the same time (weekdays and weekends included), you find that your body will automatically produce melatonin at the same time and you fall alseep at the same time every night. And your cortisol profile will become more regular (high during the day and low at night). One reason some people can not sleep (the “wired but tired” symptom) is when cortisol profile is out of norm (being high at night when it shouldn’t).

Page 148 of The New Health Rules …

“Sleep-Train Yourself … But if you reinforce a rhythm — say 11:30 betime and 6:30 wake-up — your body will help you out. It will learn to start producing melatonin at around 11:00, to make you sleepy. And at around 6:00, it’ll start pumping wake-up hormones, serotonin and cortisol. Falling asleep and waking up with both be less of an effort.”

It has a point, but I disagree with its bed time. 11:30pm is way too late. And second, 11:30 to 6:30 is only 7 hours (which is not enough).

From AdrenalFatigue.org …

“The consensus from research and clinical observation is that it is necessary to sleep an average of eight hours per day. Some people need even more in the beginning phases of recovery from adrenal fatigue.”

Let’s say you had to wake up at 6:00am to go to work (and that is when your alarm will ring). You want to go to bed early enough that you wake up naturally just before your alarm rings. You don’t want the alarm to cut off your sleep process. So 10pm to 6am would be 8 hours. However, you it may take a while to fall asleep and on some days you may actually be needing more than eight hours. So I would recommend going to bed at 9:30pm.

The Real Reason Why We Need Sleep

If you Google, why we sleep, you get answers like rejuvenation, memory consolidation, learning, and the like. Those may be side benefits or secondary reason, but they are not the real reason why we need sleep. Once you find out the real reason for sleep, perhaps you, as it was for me, will be more motivated to priority sleep. We as a nation, do not give sleep enough importance that it deserves.

If sleep was only for memory consolidation, then we would not die from lack of sleep. In fact, we die in a fewer number of days from lack of sleep than from lack of food. [reference] We die first from lack of air, second from lack of water, third from lack of sleep, then from the lack of food. If sleep was for learning, we would be stupid, but not dead.

Clearly, there is a more fundamental reason why sleep is biologically necessary in all mammals with brains. Sleep is necessary for the clearing out of waste products from the brain. The brain does not have a lymphathic system to clear waste like other organs; it has a gymphatic system which ONLY operates during sleep. Sleep is when brain cells shrink so that cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) can go between the cells and wash out the toxic by-products from it heavy metabolic use during the day.

Among those by-products that accumulate during the day is beta amyloid. They are cleared at night during sleep. Beta amyloid are exactly those plaques that characterizes Alzheimer’s disease. It has been speculated that ineffective clearance of beta amyloid may be a partial cause of Alzheimer’s disease. We do know that people with Alzheimer’s often also have difficulty sleeping. Perhaps, it is this difficulty sleeping that preceded and contributed to Alzheimer’s. We also know that people with sleep disorders have higher beta amyloid. (Yes, we can see beta amyloid in PET scans) And higher deposits of beta amyloid causes poor sleep. It is a viscous cycle. So it is best to optimize sleep early on in life.

This TED Talks by Jeff Iliff of Oregon University, provides a compelling explanation of why we need sleep…

Study at UC Berkeley found that quality of sleep and memory are related.

Brain injuries, such as concussions, impairs the gymphatic system and increase risk of Dementia.

Read more in my other article Purpose of Sleep is to Clear Brain Waste

Another Reason Why We Need Sleep

Note that clearing brain waste is just ONE of the potentially many reasons why we need to sleep. It is in non-REM Stage 3 and 4 sleep that generate the deep slow wave sleep (SWS) when the pituitary gland increases its secretion of growth hormones. People with the rare disorder of Fatal Familial insomnia can not get pass stage 1 sleep and thus waste away with weight loss as they can not generate growth hormones.

Purpose of Sleep is to Clear Brain Waste

I’ve read a lot about sleep, along with many articles that try to explain why we need sleep. In my mind, the primary purpose of why sleep is necessary is to clear brain waste.

Watch this TED Talk …

The waking brain is highly metabolically active and uses 20% of the oxygen supply. As part of its waste by-product is Amyloid beta. Yes, the sticky plaque that is found in Alzheimer’s patients.

In order to clear out this amyloid beta and other waste or toxins, the brain does not have a lymphatic system like the other organs. Instead it has a glymphatic system.

Some videos showing how the glymphatic system at work …

and …

NPR.org has a couple of audio programs on this …

Brains Sweep Themselves Clean Of Toxins During Sleep (audio program available)

Lack Of Deep Sleep May Set The Stage For Alzheimer’s (audio available)

Alzheimer’s patient have been found to have more sleep problems. And it may be that the sleep problems is partly what caused the Alzheimer. People with sleep problems also have higher amyloid beta.

The problem with the glymphatic system is that it only works during sleep. This is when brain cells shrink in order for CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) to wash out the waste. They found this out with mice models. During the day, the brain is to metabolically active.

So if you don’t sleep, your brain can not clear out waste. Or if you don’t sleep enough, your waste removal may get back-logged and beta amyloid plaques may accumulate.

We now know that concussions and brain trauma can increase risk of Alzheimer’s many years later. It may be that these injuries damages the glymphatic system so that brain can not clear beta amyloid efficiently.

Some Firm Organic Mattress

Conventional non-organic mattresses (including those memory form ones) off-gas chemicals to a certain extent. So it is best to get organic mattresses, just like it is best to eat organic foods.

Usually organic mattresses are quite soft. But for those who like to sleep organic on very firm mattresses, a few options are available…

Cambay Palmpring – made from Palm Coir (coconut fiber) – some say that it smells a bit like coconut. But I don’t know. Never seen it in front of me before.

Benchmark Superfirm from Natural Mattress Store – like sleeping on a slab of wood with a couple of inch of natural latex form on top, which is actually what it is. Website says “The firmest organic mattress available anywhere”. If that is too firm, you can purchase additional mattress toppers of varying thickness to adjust your firmness.

Both these types of mattresses does not contain metal coil springs — which is a good thing if you happen to believe in the study about metal coils acting like antennas amplifying the EMF fields around your body as you sleep.

See how EMF affects sleep here.

How EMF can affect sleep

EMF (electro and magnetic fields) hamper the pineal glands production of melatonin production.

The sleep hormone melatonin is produced by the pineal gland. Melatonin is the hormone that helps you fall asleep at night. It is also an important antioxidant for the brain. Its level is supposed to be highest at night. Those with low melatonin may have trouble falling asleep. It is good to have sufficient levels of melatonin at night.

Dr. Mercola writes that …

“EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other negative biological effects as well.”

If you want to measure the level of EMF in your bedroom, use a gauss meter.

That is one reason why drying hair at night with a hairdryer is not such a good idea if you want optimal melatonin production. Hairdryer produces EMF radiation and other electronic and electro-motor devices all generate EMF radiation to some extent. Even the electrical wiring inside the walls of your bedroom generate EMF.

Electricsense.com recommends as far as …

“go to your electrical panel and cut the power supply on the circuit breaker for your bedroom before you retire for the night.”

More EMF reduction tips by electricsense.com here. Keep cell phones, cordless phones, and chargers away from your night stand.

We human are electro-magnetic beings. EMF have effects on the cells. You can listen to Dr. Jack Kruse on the Dave Asprey podcast and on the Beverly Meyer podcast. Learn more about the effects of EMF on the body in this YouTube video…

Dr. Mercola’s commentary of that video interview is linked here. Dr. Mercola writes …

“As for hair dryers, Mr. Philips brought up a surprising point, and that is that hair dryers are most dangerous when used later in the evening, as the magnetic field produced near your head is enough to shut down your brain’s production of melatonin, which has been acknowledged as a radioprotective anticancer agent. Short-term, it can also disrupt your sleep cycle.”

Avoid sleeping next to electrical appliances and don’t use electric blankets. On page 238 – 239 of The Mood Cure, it mentions that these are several of the things that can affect melatonin production.

Also good idea to turn off your WiFi router at night. You don’t need it to surf the web while you are sleeping, do you?

Jack Kruse says …

“Nighttime is the most crucial time to eliminate EMFs because they interfere with the core goals of the parasympathetic nervous system during sleep: restore, rejuvenate, detoxify.”

and he provides good tips on how to reduce EMFs in his article.

If you can’t sleep at night, but are sleepy during the day, one of the possible reason might be that your circadian rhythm may be out of sync with the day night cycle.

Of course if one can not sleep at night, one tends to be sleepy during the day. But many people are actually able to fall asleep during the day if they let themselves and are not constrained by needing to be at work. So that indicates that the body is able to fall asleeps, but not at the right time. This is a clue that the circadian rhythm is weak or out-of-sync.

The body’s circadian rhythm is like a natural internal clock. The “master clock” is the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain.

And your body’s hormones levels and other physiological processes are governed by this rhythm and the day-night cycle. For example, cortisol hormone levels should be high in the morning and low at night. Melatonin hormone level should be high at night and and low during the day. And many other hormones have day-night cycle like this.

If your circadian rhythm is off, your hormones will be off, and sleep does not come at the right time.

You say, but I know when it is daytime and when it is night time, I have the clock on the wall and on my phone that tells me. And I can see when it is day and night. So my circadian rhythm should know too. Unfortunately, that may not be the case. Your higher cognitive brain (the pre-frontal cortex) may know when it is day or night. But it is not the one controlling sleep or the circadian rhythm. It does not have the ability to control your autonomic processes. Just like your prefrontal cortex can not control your heartbeat or your digestion. If your pre-fontal cortex was able to control sleep, then you would not have any problem sleeping. You would just think, “Let’s sleep now” and bam you go to sleep. Just like as if you think, let’s raise my hand, and bam your hand is raised.

You may have conscious control over your hand, but not your sleep. What does have control over my sleep then? It is the pineal gland and its production of melatonin. The pineal gland is part of the old brain seated deep in the center of the brain. You have no conscious control over this gland or its production of melatonin. There are nerve pathways from the retina of your eye to the pineal gland. So the pineal gland get signals from the retina as to the amount of light that is in the environment.

Get bright natural sunlight exposure during the day and your pineal gland will know it is daytime. Keep your bedroom at night as dark as possible and your pineal gland will know it is night time. The stronger the intensity of the light during the day and the darker it is at night, the stronger the signal and the stronger your circadian rhythm will be. When your pineal gland gets good day-night signals, it will produce melatonin at the right time. Your body will be in sync with the day-night rotation of the Earth.

That is why some people say they can sleep better when camping outdoors aways from all the city lights. That is why some people can sleep better on the weekend after they’ve been outside all day, versus during weekday when they are inside an non-windowed office.

That is why you need to make your bedroom as dark as possible. To strengthen your circadian, get bright natural sunlight exposure during the morning. Spend at least a half hour (more the better) walking outdoors or eating your breakfast outdoors. Eat your lunch outdoors. Throughout the day, spend at least 5 minutes every hour being outside where you can see the blue sky. Even if it is an overcast day, still go outside. You may not perceive it to be so. But an overcast day outside is brighter than indoors, if you measure the intensity with a light lux meter.

If you are indoors, sit by the window during the day. While natural light without passing through a window is best (because glass blocks some UV light), window is still better than no window. At least you get greater light with window.

If work constraints prevent you from going outside, get a light box or use light box therapy.

Circadian rhythm occurs in most lifeforms including animals and plants of course, but also have been seen in fungi, cyanobacteria, and even in our own microbiome bacteria in our gut. Our gut bugs can not see light, but their cycle is govern by the feeding of the host. That is why eating only during daylight hours.

Ubiomeblog writes that our…

“The study also concludes that misalignments in the circadian cycle can result in metabolic imbalance and dysbiosis (a lack of bacterial balance), and that these may in turn have relevance in the diagnosis of modern human diseases.”

Jet lag mice have altered microbiome function. And when our microbiome is affected, sleep can be affected.

In the audiobook “The Stress Answer“, Dr. Frank Lawlis writes …

“Most sleep problems emerge from circadian rhythm disruption. That means that your brain is not sleeping in the natural patterns it was designed to do. You should be getting at least eight, and ideally nine hours of sleep (during the time the sun is not exposing you to light), especially if you’re undergoing stress of any kind.”

Dr. Dement’s book The Promise of Sleep writes …

“we defy our circadian rhythms and sleep indebtedness at our own peril. When we harmonize our lifestyle with our body’s master click, we maximize the quality of our life — physically, mentally, and emotionally.”