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What is REM Sleep and Why is it Important?

What is REM Sleep and Why is it Important?

Our sleep cycle is separated into two main components: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep (NREM). We cycle between the two all night, with four stages of NREM sleep preceding one stage of REM sleep. NREM sleep is the stage at which our body repairs itself, energy is replenished and our immune system is boosted. A complete cycle of sleep takes between 90 and 110 minutes in total, with approximately a quarter of that time being spent in REM sleep. It is also the stage during which dreaming almost always takes place. Scientists are still trying to discover the extent to which REM sleep affects our health and mental well-being, but they do know that REM sleep is important for the development of creativity and problem solving ability, and is how we learn to adapt to our world.

REM sleep was first formally observed by the scientists Aserinsky and Kleitman in the 1950s, who noted the rapid, jerky movements of the eyes through closed lids, as if the sleeper were seeing something, and noticed that breathing and heart rate increased. Another feature of REM sleep is that the voluntary muscle groups become temporarily paralyzed by the base of the brain “shutting off” the neurons in our spinal cord so we do not act out the dreams we are experiencing as we sleep. The electroencephalogram (EEG) that was attached to the sleepers showed levels of brain activity nearly identical to those who were awake. Contrary to what was previously believed about sleep as being a state in which the brain slows down, during REM sleep, the brain is actually very active. Why may this be?

According to French scientist Michel Jouvet, REM sleep is also a way of programming our brain to adapt to the world around us. Much as a computer can be reprogrammed when it is off-line, Jouvet believes our brain can take information it has received during the day and program the central nervous system to organize or maintain instinctive behavior.

The percentage of time spent in REM sleep is the greatest among babies and children. Babies can spend as much as 50% of their sleep time in the REM stage. And while it has been thought that the dreams we experience during REM sleep are a consolidation of the memories that we have experienced during the previous day, babies in the womb (who experts believe have few or no real world memories) spend most of their sleep time in a state of REM.

Professor of psychiatry emeritus at Harvard University, J. Allan Hobson, says of the purpose of REM sleep, “It’s a reinforcement of basic knowledge—knowledge that precedes any waking-state learning: how to be a person, how to be an ego, how to exist in a space, how to move in a space, how to feel. It’s not environmental memory; it’s genetic memory.”

 

Can You Really “Bank” Sleep?

Can You Really “Bank” Sleep?

striped-cat-sleeping-on-chair

Banking sleep to save energy for later? To most people, this idea probably sounds too good to be true. At the very least, it probably seems to defy common sense and or runs counter to the way we think our bodies work. However, it actually turns out that banking sleep is possible—within limits.

A great deal of research has been conducted on this subject.  In one particular study, American scientists invited a number of volunteers to adjust their sleep patterns so that researchers could observe the effects. For a week, half of the volunteers were permitted to sleep more than usual, and the remaining volunteers were made to sleep according to their usual pattern.

“After this week of either extended or habitual sleep per night, all the volunteers came to the lab and they were given three hours of sleep, per night, for a week,” says Tracy Rupp of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. The volunteers were then assigned tasks of varying difficulty, and those who had banked their sleep were more unaffected throughout the sleep restriction.

Rupp elaborates: “They showed less performance deterioration with regards to reaction time and alertness than the group that had been given the habitual prior sleep.”

The study also revealed that a week after the experiment, the banked sleepers were recuperating faster from deficiency of sleep than the others were. Rupp again: “What we’re basically saying is if you fill up your reserves and pay back your sleep debt ahead of time, you’re better equipped to deal with the sleep loss challenge.”

While these results may sound great, there are limits to what banking sleep can do for you. “It’s a strategy that’s only partially successful,” explains Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., in the November 2013 issue of Psychology Today. “New research indicates that although some of the negative effects of a week of insufficient sleep can be remedied with extra sleep on the weekend, others cannot. Researchers at Penn State University College of Medicine studied the effects of weekend recovery sleep after a week of mild sleep deprivation. They found that make-up sleep on the weekends erased only some of the deficits associated with not sleeping enough the previous week.”

Banking sleep isn’t limited to sleeping longer nights. Naps can be extremely effective as well—within limits, of course. According to Science Focus, “A 1991 study at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio found that after an ordinary night’s sleep, subjects could take an extra nap in the afternoon and then work through the night with greater alertness that a control group who didn’t nap. The study also found that performance is proportional to the length of the nap—but the effect doesn’t last.

After a second consecutive night without sleep, all of the subjects performed equally badly, regardless of how much sleep they had initially. It may be that all of us are normally slightly sleep-deprived and one really good night’s sleep will bring us back up to 100%, but that the ‘tank’ isn’t big enough to buffer us against more than one all-nighter.”

The practical uses of banking sleep go beyond needing to pull an all-nighter before finals or a big presentation at work. Dr. Winter, a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, puts it thusly: “If you knew you were going to give birth on a particular day, for example, you could sleep for 10 hours a day for multiple days before the event, and be fine.”

Lastly, it is important to consider the host of negative effects of sleep deprivation. Memory loss, obesity, and even early death comprise some of these consequences. The moral of the story here is that banking sleep in advance may actually be a reasonable short-term strategy for coping with an isolated event (like giving birth). However, the best long-term strategy for staying healthy and performing well is to get a good night’s sleep as consistently as possible.

 

Need a Good Night’s Rest? Try These Natural Approaches Before You Visit the Medicine Cabinet

Need a Good Night’s Rest? Try These Natural Approaches Before You Visit the Medicine Cabinet

man-sleeping-at-playground-200-300How well did you sleep last night? If you’re like nearly one third of American adults, the answer is probably “not that well.” Stress and distractions can make it difficult to nod off, but that doesn’t mean you have to turn to over-the-counter or prescription sleep aids to get the rest you need. Consider these natural sleep aids as a way to get some shut-eye.

Create a Restful Environment and Routine

Creating an environment that is conducive to sleep is an effective way to drift off naturally. This includes making sure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and at a comfortable temperature, as well as following a bedtime routine that helps you wind down and relax. Make sure your bed is comfortable–don’t be afraid to experiment with different pillows and mattress toppers to find the ones that work best for you. Avoid bright lights in the hour before you go to sleep (this includes computers, phones, and televisions). Read a book or take a warm bath before bed to help you relax and get ready to rest. Establishing this type of routine will make it easier to transition from wakefulness to sleep.

Try Chamomile Tea

Chamomile is a traditional herbal remedy that has been used for millennia as a solution for sleeplessness. It is a safe, mild sleep aid that can be a relaxing part of a bedtime routine. If you are taking any other medicinal sleep aids, be sure to consult with your doctor before adding chamomile (or any other oral sleep aid) to your regimen.

Watch What You Eat

Your eating habits can impact your ability to fall asleep. If you rely on coffee to keep you going during the day, try eliminating caffeinated beverages in the ten hours leading up to bedtime. It is also a good idea to avoid eating large meals late at night. It takes your stomach quite a bit of work to digest rich food, which may prevent you from drifting off. Finally, be careful about how many liquids you consume in the last two hours before bed. Late night fluid consumption often leads to multiple bathroom trips, making it hard to settle down and fall asleep.

Consult with a Chiropractor

If you’ve tried these natural sleep solutions and still aren’t getting the rest you need, a chiropractor may be able to help. Interferences in the body’s central nervous system can create a stress response in your body, which makes it difficult to sleep. Chiropractic care can help to correct these interferences safely, allowing your body to function as it should. Chiropractors can also work with you to identify lifestyle factors that may interfere with your sleep patterns and help you create a plan to correct them.

Insomnia is a frustrating issue, but there are natural alternatives to visiting your medicine cabinet. In many cases, a combination of lifestyle changes and chiropractic care can help you find the rest you need.

Health Risks for Frequent Flyers

Health Risks for Frequent Flyers

Tech-Ind
Tech-Ind

Back in the early days of commercial flight, flying was a costly, exclusive and elegant form of travel. People would dress in their best clothes and be treated like celebrities by flight attendants. Most frequent flyers would tell you that those days are long, long gone.

Even as air transportation has become far less expensive and more widely available over the years, the experience itself has generally become less pleasant. Extensive security checks, crowded planes and airline cost-cutting all play a part.  However, did you know that there are a number of aspects to flying that can also be detrimental to your health, especially if you’re a frequent flyer? Following are a few of the health risks you should be aware of if you must fly often.

Noise-induced hearing loss – The white noise of a plane may be able to lull us to sleep, but it is still loud enough to be to cause hearing damage with regular exposure. Those who sit at the back of the plane fare worst, as those passengers get the brunt of the engine noise, which can sometimes rise as high as 100 decibels. For comparison, the noise of heavy traffic is around 80 decibels and normal conversation is approximately 60 decibels. If you can, try to get a seat nearer to the front of the plane, where the average noise level is about 75 decibels. Experiencing this level of sound once in a while is not bad, but frequent flyers risk permanent damage to their hearing unless they take precautions to protect their ears, such as by using earplugs.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) – Also sometimes called “economy class syndrome,” this can be a life-threatening condition in which blood clots form in the legs due to being seated in cramped conditions for long periods of time. These clots sometimes break free and can travel to the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. Those in business and first class are not entirely immune either, however. An examination of 68 deaths on flights due to DVT found that 12% of the victims were in first or business class. To prevent this, there are a number of strategies you can employ, including wearing special “flight socks,” taking aspirin, drinking water and walking around periodically during the flight.

Increase in disease risk – Although the disease you are most at risk of contracting is the common cold, your risk of catching a cold when flying is over 100 times greater than if you had not flown. Although studies have shown that the plane’s air recirculation system is not the cause of increased illness, the fact remains that people still get sick far more often after a flight. One of the primary reasons for this is the extremely low humidity in the cabin. This dries out the mucus membranes in our respiratory tract that tend to catch harmful microbes and destroy them before they can cause damage. If you are concerned, you can purchase a special respiratory mask that will screen out 98% of airborne particles. You may look a bit unusual, but at least you have a better chance of remaining disease-free.

Jet lag – The disturbance of your circadian rhythms can cause both physical and mental impairment for a number of days after the flight. Jet lag creates a disruption to your sleep and hormone patterns that can lead to short-term episodes of psychosis for some. If your trip crosses fewer than three time zones you will probably not have a problem. If your trip is going to last for fewer than three days, experts recommend that you keep to your “home time” to avoid symptoms of jet lag. Otherwise, your best bet is to try to adjust to local time as quickly as possible. Stay up as late as is normal at your destination, then get up at a normal hour in the morning and expose yourself to bright light for as long as possible.

Young Children Pay a High Price for Screen Time

Young Children Pay a High Price for Screen Time

Little baby boy playing with TV remoteMany parents are occasionally thankful for the television—after all, it can serve as a low-cost, short-term babysitter while they cook or do housework. At the same time, however, many parents are concerned about the amount of television that their children watch—and for good reason. Statistics tell us that in America, children under six watch an average of two hours of TV a day, and children eight to 18 spend an average of four hours in front of a TV and often an additional two hours a day on computers or playing video games.

So what does all of this screen time mean for America’s children? Recent research published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that it is results in poorer well-being and sleep and that it contributes to childhood obesity.

In the first study, part of a larger research project called IDEFICS (Identification and Prevention of Dietary- and Lifestyle-Induced Health Effects in Children and Infants), researchers examined 3,604 children aged two to six to determine if there was a relationship between their electronic media use and their sense of well-being. They assessed the children based on six standardized indicators of well-being (including emotional problems, peer problems, self-esteem, family functioning, and social interactions) and compared the results to the number of hours they spent in front of a TV, computer, or video game screen. They found that increased media use predicted much poorer senses of well-being. TV was found to be more harmful than computer use, but overall they found that there was a 1.2- to 2.0-fold increase in emotional problems and poorer family functioning for each additional hour of media use.

A second JAMA Pediatrics study involving 1,713 Spanish children found that children who watched more than 1.5 hours of television per day had shorter sleep duration and began to suffer from sleep deprivation. Their sleep duration shortened with every extra hour of television watched over the 1.5-hour baseline. And in a third study, researchers found that increased media exposure resulted in sharply increasing BMI (Body Mass Index) scores, and thus a tendency toward childhood obesity.

So how much TV is too much? Every day more research comes out indicating that exposure to electronic media can have adverse effects on children—effects that can persist into adulthood.

As a result, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under the age of two not watch any TV, as the first two years of life are a critical time for brain development. Television and other electronic media can prevent exploring, playing, and interacting with parents and others, all of which are critical for social development. In addition, the AAP suggests that children older than two watch no more than one to two hours of electronic media per day.

How Much Sleep is Too Much?

How Much Sleep is Too Much?

Mother Kissing Toddler's CheekWe all know how important it is to get a good night’s sleep and the detrimental effect on our health if we get too little of it. However, it is also possible to get too much sleep, and this may be even worse than getting too little. Sleeping too much has been shown to be a possible indication of underlying health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, low thyroid and obstructive sleep apnea, and is liked to an increased risk of early death.

Everyone’s need for sleep differs, and there are good reasons for occasionally having to sleep more, such as during periods of high stress or illness. But on average, experts suggest that the optimum amount of sleep to get on a regular basis is between 7 and 9 hours a day. One study showed that those who slept between 9 and 10 hours per night were 21% more likely to become obese over a period of 6 years than those who slept between 7 and 8 hours a night. Another study of 72,000 women found that those who slept between 9 and 11 hours a night had a 38% greater likelihood of coronary heart disease than those who slept 8 hours.

Depression and low socioeconomic status have also been linked with sleeping too much, so it may be that oversleeping is one of the symptoms of these conditions rather than being a cause of the detrimental health effects associated with oversleeping. People with these conditions are less likely to seek or be able to afford health care, so any underlying health problems may not be discovered and treated.

When underlying health and mental problems have been ruled out, people who still feel a strong need to sleep for 70 hours or more per week have what is called primary hypersomnia. Many with hypersomnia go undiagnosed, as it often develops in the teenage years and can be attributed to typical teenage behavior. A study was performed by researchers at Atlanta’s Emory University on people with this condition. The researchers found that one of the major factors implicated in hypersomnia is the presence of a certain substance in the person’s cerebrospinal fluid that acts much in the same way as a sleeping pill. Emory researcher Andrew Jenkins said, “We know why you’re sleepy—your brain is sedating itself.” It is typical for people with hypersomnia to simultaneously experience low levels of energy, anxiety and memory problems, in addition to extreme sleepiness throughout the day that is generally not relieved by napping.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a condition that causes the sufferer to stop breathing for short periods of time during sleep, keeping them from getting to the stage of restful, restorative sleep that is necessary for proper physical and mental functioning during the day. Some prescription medications and the overuse of alcohol can also lead to oversleeping.

If you find yourself consistently sleeping more than 9 hours a day and are also sleepy throughout the day, it is a good idea to consult with your doctor to rule out any underlying medical conditions that may be contributing to your oversleeping.

 

What is REM Sleep and Why is it Important?

What is REM Sleep and Why is it Important?

baby #21Our sleep cycle is separated into two main components: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep (NREM). We cycle between the two all night, with four stages of NREM sleep preceding one stage of REM sleep. NREM sleep is the stage at which our body repairs itself, energy is replenished and our immune system is boosted. A complete cycle of sleep takes between 90 and 110 minutes in total, with approximately a quarter of that time being spent in REM sleep. It is also the stage during which dreaming almost always takes place. Scientists are still trying to discover the extent to which REM sleep affects our health and mental well-being, but they do know that REM sleep is important for the development of creativity and problem solving ability, and is how we learn to adapt to our world.

REM sleep was first formally observed by the scientists Aserinsky and Kleitman in the 1950s, who noted the rapid, jerky movements of the eyes through closed lids, as if the sleeper were seeing something, and noticed that breathing and heart rate increased. Another feature of REM sleep is that the voluntary muscle groups become temporarily paralyzed by the base of the brain “shutting off” the neurons in our spinal cord so we do not act out the dreams we are experiencing as we sleep. The electroencephalogram (EEG) that was attached to the sleepers showed levels of brain activity nearly identical to those who were awake. Contrary to what was previously believed about sleep as being a state in which the brain slows down, during REM sleep, the brain is actually very active. Why may this be?

According to French scientist Michel Jouvet, REM sleep is also a way of programming our brain to adapt to the world around us. Much as a computer can be reprogrammed when it is off-line, Jouvet believes our brain can take information it has received during the day and program the central nervous system to organize or maintain instinctive behavior.

The percentage of time spent in REM sleep is the greatest among babies and children. Babies can spend as much as 50% of their sleep time in the REM stage. And while it has been thought that the dreams we experience during REM sleep are a consolidation of the memories that we have experienced during the previous day, babies in the womb (who experts believe have few or no real world memories) spend most of their sleep time in a state of REM.

Professor of psychiatry emeritus at Harvard University, J. Allan Hobson, says of the purpose of REM sleep, “It’s a reinforcement of basic knowledge—knowledge that precedes any waking-state learning: how to be a person, how to be an ego, how to exist in a space, how to move in a space, how to feel. It’s not environmental memory; it’s genetic memory.”