And So To Bed

This post is from a book with my favorite chapter titles out of all the books I have checked out… I had such gems to choose from as “Bones, Flesh, and Dinners,” “A Little Poison Now and Then,” “How Now, Brown Cow,” and “Where’re I Roam.” The book, by the way, is You’re the Doctor by Victor Heiser published in 1939. However, I chose to draw from the chapter for which this post is entitled, “And So To Bed,” because (drumroll please………)! I’ve been having trouble sleeping.

You know those nights when you try to go to bed early and it just doesn’t work? And when you finally DO go to bed, you wake up at approximately 3:08 am wiiiiiide awake and “ready or not here I come” to seize the day? And no matter how much classical music you listen to, sheep you count, light reading you engage in, and rearranging of pillows, you just don’t fall back asleep until maybe 2 hours later, at which point you wake up before your alarm anyway and then just give up?

Well, I do.

And recently, I have been knowing those nights well.  So I am going to see what Dr. Victor Heiser, M.D. has to say on the subject. A little advice from 1939 never hurt anyone….yet.

Dr. Heiser starts out with what I will call his 1/3 thesis…Life = 1/3 work + 1/3 play + 1/3 sleep. Or it should. Ha. But actually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics “American Time Use Survey, 2011,” The average American is getting about 8, if not more, daily hours of sleep. The BLS reported that the weekday average for adult sleep is 8.5 hours and the weekend average is a hefty 9.4 hours. Too bad we can’t all be average. (See table below for stats)

I don’t really believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics (sorry US government…), so I checked up on some other facts, and according to the National Sleep Foundation in an article also published in 2011,  “About two-thirds (63%) of Americans say their sleep needs are not being met during the week. Most say they need about seven and a half hours of sleep to feel their best, but report getting about six hours and 55 minutes of sleep on average weeknights. About 15% of adults between 19 and 64 and 7% of 13-18 year olds say they sleep less than six hours on weeknights.” So who do we believe? Personally, from what I observe and hear from those around me, I will say that the National Sleep Foundation is more correct and the BLS may be slightly disillusioned on how much Americans actually sleep.  But you, dear reader, can form your own opinion.

And now back to the all-knowing Dr. Heiser:

According to this dude, sleep is necessary for a variety of reasons as explained by a couple theories. Some of the more notable ones include...

• During the day acid products accumulate which bring oxygen starvation (how sleep helps this I am not sure…)
• Circulatory: pulsebeats are observable in the hand of a sleeper, but are not there when he is awake (so you need to sleep to make sure you have a pulse...?)
• Connections with the dark (no explanation offered here)
• The neuron theory: “according to which impulses to the brain are automatically cut off” (How this would be beneficial, I also do not understand.)

I don't know about the first three, and I think I will propose a neural theory of my own.  Well, actually, its from an NPR report, but whose checking... 

Sleep is actually necessary for a variety of vital bodily functions. The most notable neural need for sleep is in forming and consolidating memory. This specific piece, "The Science of Slumber”, featured on Science Friday (believe-it-or-not my favorite NPR show) discusses the correlation and possible causal relationship between declining sleep with age and declining memory with age. However, if we follow the table above from the BLS exactly and follow this correlation logic from NPR, our memories should actually decline and then improve again…but I wont get into that, since that's probably not how it works.  

One of the featured specialists on the show, Robert Stickgold, says that sleep is involved in many functions; immunity, endocrine regulation, and memory. He says that “memory is the only one we've come up with that has a strong argument of why you have to become so disconnected from the rest of the world.”  Sleep is important in the consolidation of memory, so when short-term memories are encoded as long-term memories, a process which takes place in the hippocampus. The piece also mentions that humans put too much symbolism on physical processes; we want to- we have to know why certain processes happen, for example, sleep.  He uses the analogy of a tiger; the tiger sleeps just like the human, and he sleeps so he can be faster than the antelope, so he can attack it and eat it. Basically, sleep is involved in many functions for all animals: physiological, developmental, learning, and attention, immunity, dealing with stress, etc…

*Funny fact: I listened to this NPR show last night when I was actually having trouble sleeping in an attempt to help me go back to sleep. Too bad I thought it was really interesting and therefore failed in my attempt to go back to sleep, but at least you all got a good reference out of it! It is a really fantastic and interesting segment, and I suggest everyone listens to it when they have the time (maybe next time you can’t sleep…)

Anyway, the last point I will harp on goes back to that article I mentioned earlier by the National Sleep Foundation about technology use and sleep.  This article mentions the many distraction in our daily lives that prevent us from sleeping or lead to troubled sleep: watching TV before bed, cell phones, computers, basically any technology use before bed, especially technology that is active (like surfing the internet or playing video games).

The article offers suggestions that will help if you are having sleep problems: avoid large meals before bedtime, exercise regularly, create a comfortable sleeping environment free from distractions, no nightcaps, and many more...

Heiser offers some similar suggestions of his own: right before bed listen to quiet music rather than swing, the physical effort of walking is more calming than the mental strain of driving a car in traffic, read rather than playing bridge before bedtime, and don’t play chess in the evening.

Thats all folks! G'night.