Care For Your Sleep

Archive for the ‘You and Your Sleep’ Category

How many of us have real problems with waking up early in the morning? How hard it is sometimes to get out of bed and make yourself start your day? This problem should be pretty well familiar to millions of people. Scientists at the Northwestern University have found a new theory about those who like staying in bed till the noon time. They explain this tendency with a certain gene loss. This gene received a name “twenty four” and is reported to be able to mess up our sleep-awake cycle, this way making much harder for many of us to awaken. The findings of this study were recently published in one of the issues of Nature magazine.

The circadian clock is something that drives our organism, along with other natural things and mechanisms, in sleeping and awake mode. Our circadian rhythm is regulated by special protein called PER, and the 24 gene turned out to be a key component for producing PER protein. In other words, when 24 gene is absent,  too little protein PER is produced and found in brain neurons, therefore, the sleep-awake cycle is disturbed.

During the Northwestern study, the scientists used for experiments the species of the flies, Drosophila melanogaster. However, the findings are completely applicable to human beings as well. Dr Ravi Allada, on of the leaders of the Northwestern study, comments on the experiments during the study as the following: “The function of a clock is to tell your system to be prepared, that the sun is rising, and it’s time to get up. The flies without the twenty-four gene did not become much more active before dawn. The equivalent in humans would be someone who has trouble getting out of bed in the morning.”

Many of us like taking a nap in the daytime, but unfortunately just few of us can afford it. And it’s not too good, especially for those whose work and daily activities are closely linked to being focused and concentrated. The specialists from Utrecht University (the Netherlands) found out that a short daytime sleep is one of the most effective ways to increase our productivity. They are convinced that only 20-30 minutes of a good sleep in the afternoon is enough to relax. This short sleep will help us restore our energy, clear our mind, sharpen our problem-solving abilities and be ready for new challenges.

Moreover, the experts from Holland are convinced that this short daytime napping can play an important role in lowering the traffic accident occurrence and helping us avoid various traumas and injures linked to a lack of attention and inability to focus. They claim that their experiments have shown that having a regular 20-30 minutes daytime nap (at least 3-4 times a day) decreases the risk of having a stroke for almost 37%.

That is why having regular daytime sleep is not less important for every modern person than following a healthy diet, drinking sufficient amounts of water or doing enough physical activities on a regular basis. However, the researches say that it is possible to achieve the states results only in case if you have a short but very good rest. The best environment for such daytime napping sessions are, certainly, dark rooms with relatively low temperature. It is recommended also to use beds and do not sleep in a sitting position. Only this way your body can relax completely and take maximum from a short daytime sleep. How could we possibly have this luxury daytime sleep when we spend out days in the offices, the specialists have not specified.

Australian specialists and scientists carry on studying human sleep patterns and discovering new things about possible risks linked to having troubled nights on a regular basis. According to a new research, such symptoms as snoring, obstructive sleep apnea and other sleep disturbances can be connected with graduate brain damage and brain shrinkage. The study was carried out by a group of Australian sleep physicians from Austin Health Center in Melbourne, leaded by Fergal O’Donoghue.

Using high-tech imagery technologies, the specialists analyzed brain scans of a large group of the participants, some of which were normal sleepers, and some suffered from regular snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. After comparing the scans of the participants, it turned out that those who have troubled sleep on a regular basis have certain differences in two brain areas: in particular, around those ones which are responsible for human memory and our physical movement control.

It was actually left unclear, if it is sleep apnea that caused brain changes, or vice-versa. Specialists tend to believe that the connections between sleep disorder causing brain shrinkage are more likely to take place, but it is also clear that these types of sleep patterns can cause serious risks to snorer’s health and life.  “These were patients with very severe decreases in oxygen levels during the night, and we know from animal studies that if you subject them to drops in oxygen levels, they do develop changes in brain structure,” O’Donoghue says.

Snoring and sleep apnea are among very common conditions for toady’s Australian society as they are very frequently associated with overweight and obesity. According to O’Donoghue, about 90% of cases are undiagnosed. At the same time, another research of Australian sleep experts at Sydney University has shown that those people who suffer from snoring and obstructive sleep apnea have three times higher risks of atherosclerosis caused by damaged artery walls. These findings of Australian sleep specialists were recently presented at the Australian Sleep Conference  in Christchurch.

Many of us suffer from chronic or occasional insomnia, sleep disturbances, restlessness or other types of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation. In many situations, known and effective solutions like sleeping pills or developing good sleeping habits do not improve the situation. We know that our sleep patterns depend a lot on our daily diet and what we usually eat, therefore we try to keep away from caffeine and alcohol, but this does not seem to help as well.

For those, who are looking for more solutions to improve own sleep quality, there are recommendations from the world’s leading nutritionists. Check out the list of the foods which, if consumed before the bedtime, can interfere with out sleep routine and cause sleep disturbances.

1. Any spicy food. Spicy foods have clear stimulating effects, they can cause heartburn, heaviness and unpleasant feelings in the stomach. If you like hot wings or other spicy snacks, be sure that you eat those early enough not to bother your sleep.

2. Smoked meat. According to the recent studies, processed and smoked meat has a high content of tyramine, a monoamine compound which stimulates the production of hormones that make us feel awake and alert. Therefore, it is recommended to refrain from eating smoked or processed meat before going to bed.

3. Aged cheese. The same can be said about any sort of hard cheese, which contain tyramine in great amounts.

4. Milk chocolate. Milk chocolate is known for its high content of tyrosine, which in turn gets easily converted into dopamine, a hormone responsible for activities and alertness.

5. Ginseng root tea. In contrast to other herbal teas, ginseng root tea have very strong stimulative effects, though some ginseng tea lovers may not feel those effects. Specialists say that after drinking a cup of ginseng root tea, approximately every second person feels pumped blood pressure and insomnia.

Specialists at the Penn State College of Medicine, Pennsylvania, have found out that it is much harder for today’s men to cope with chronic insomnia and other sleep disorders than it is for modern women. In particular, the researchers are convinced that those men who suffer from chronic insomnia or any other type of chronic sleep deprivation are more likely to have increased risks of premature death than those men who have regular sufficient and healthy sleep.  At the same time, women can manage with a prolonged sleep deprivation without any decrease in their life expectancy, the researchers say.

The study lasted for about 20 years and involved about 1000 female and 740 male participants. The researchers thoroughly analyzed sleep routine and sleep patterns of the participants, including monitoring night sleeps of the individuals in the scientific labs. For the period of the research, 4% of men and 8% of women were diagnosed as insomniacs, and their sleep routine was defined as sleeping less than 6 hours a day.

Within the period of the last 14 years, it turned out that the men with chronic insomnia had more chances to die in early ages, but women demonstrated no such tendency. This is the first study which found scientific evidence for the  increased risks of premature death in men who suffer from chronic insomnia.

According to the scientists, the risks of premature death increase immensely when in addition to suffering from chronic insomnia men also have diabetes and suffer from a high blood pressure. Dr Alexandros Vgontzas comments on the results of this research as the following: “The primary finding of our study is that insomnia, the most common sleep disorder, is associated with significant mortality in men. We believe that cumulatively these findings will increase the awareness among physicians and scientists that insomnia should be diagnosed early and treated appropriately.” Read more about this interesting research in the medical journal Sleep.