Get Your Beauty Sleep

Why is it known as beauty sleep? If you have trouble sleeping you already know that this can leave you looking a little ragged.  But the effects of insomnia or too many late nights goes far deeper than that. In fact getting your beauty sleep is more beneficial than the most expensive beauty treatment.

Growth hormone, released during deep sleep, is used to repair cells and to build lean muscle and bone. There is also reduction in the breakdown of proteins during this stage of sleep. A recent study at the University of Chicago has found that a reduction in deep wave, or stage 3 sleep, contributes to increased body fat and reduced lean muscle.

So without enough sleep you will get fat and flabby and the structure of your skin and other organs will deteriorate. In other words, a lack of deep sleep causes premature aging and that is why we call it beauty sleep.

Make sure that you are getting enough beauty sleep every night.

Sleep facts: We can’t choose how much sleep we need. Science tells us that our genes determine our sleep needs.  So if you have ever wondered why some people seem to be able to function well on only 6 hours sleep a night while you are a complete zombie after sleeping less than 8 now you know.  The answer is in your genes.

Those fortunate souls who need less sleep are born with a variant of a gene called PER3 that regulates their sleep needs.  This gene variant allows them to thrive on less sleep, in fact they are even more energetic than the 8 hour sleepers. It seems that their sleep needs are simply lower. (Sleep Needs Study Citation)

“Short-term and chronic disruptions in the length of optimal sleep can have serious consequences on cognition, mood and physical health, including cancer and endocrine function,” says the senior author of the study, Ying-Hui Fu, UCSF professor of neurology.”

Unfortunately there isn’t anything you can do to change your genes so at this point this finding will only be of practical importance to sleep researchers. Learning about genetic variation in sleep needs is a help though. Now you have the perfect answer to anyone who thinks you could do better!

Sleep Deprivation

In a separate study, led by led by Pierre Maquet, MD, at the University of Lìege in Belgium and Derk-Jan Dijk, PhD, at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom and reported in the June 24 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience helps explain why sleep deprivation affects some people more than others.

“…After staying awake all night, those who are genetically vulnerable to sleep deprivation showed reduced brain activity, while those who are genetically resilient showed expanded brain activity, the study found. The findings help explain individual differences in the ability to compensate for lack of sleep.”

So, in light of this, do those programs that say they can train you to need less sleep make sense? I don’t think so. We are what we are and sleep facts can’t be changed.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

A new study suggests that low iron levels in certain parts of the brain may be to blame for restless leg syndrom. This is a new research finding and may eventually lead to a  treatment. Iron deficiency anemia itself can lead to RSL, but treating low iron is not  a solution to the iron deficiency in the brain uncovered by this research. Further work is needed to see how the parts of the brain that are low in iron can be targeted.

Meanwhile RSL is a problem that so far doesn’t have a satisfactory cure although various home remedies can help to relieve it. Here are some things that experts recommend for this trying condition:

• Take a daily walk or other exercise,
• Stretch your legs before and after your exercise
• Massage your legs daily to improve circulation
• Avoid heavy meals and alcohol 2 to 3 hours before bedtime
• Keep to a regular bedtime routine
• Take only prescription medications
• If stress is a factor learn relaxation techniques.

Exercise Tips for Treating Restless Leg Syndrome — powered by eHow.com

I also found some good information on RSL here.

There is another article on RSL on this site that might inerest you too.

Have you heard that lack of sleep can result in obesity? Well a recent study claims to have teased out why this may be. It seems that sleeping too little encourages snacking.

In this  2008 study, headed by Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago, 11 men and women agreed to spend two 14 day periods in the sleep lab. On the first occasion they were restricted to 5.5 hours of sleep and on the second they were allowed 8.5 hours. On each occasion they were able to eat whatever they liked.

Results showed that when they were restricted to 5.5 hours of sleep they ate an average of 1,087 calories in snacks. On the days after  8.5 hours sleep their snacks averaged only 866 calories.

But don’t get too anxious about this because total calories consumed and total weight gain was not different. The short sleep and the normal sleep resulted in a similar average daily intake and weight increase. The only difference was that they ate more of their calories as snacks when they were sleep deprived.

Of course this was a small and very short study so I wouldn’t put too much weight on it!

SOURCES:

SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, Baltimore June 7-12, 2008.

Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, University of Chicago.

Sanjeev Kothare, MD, spokesman, American Academy of Sleep Medicine; department of neurology, Harvard Medical School.

 I have just read this on The Good Housekeeping Health Site:

Add one hour of sleep to your schedule, and you could drop up to 14 pounds this year. New data from the University of Michigan shows that you'll likely eat 6 percent less if you replace 60 minutes of awake time (when you may snack) with an hour of shut-eye. And a Harvard study that tracked around 68,000 women found that those who clocked only five or fewer hours of rest a night had a 32 percent greater chance of gaining more than 30 pounds over a 16-year period than those who got seven hours of sleep.

I already knew that there was a link between obesity and sleep hours but didn't know the figures.  Yet another good reason to end insomnia as soon as possible.

See tomorrows post for an action plan to beat insomnia.

Various studies published in the last few years have showed that most adults are not getting sufficient sleep.  We need  8 to 9 hours a night but I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me that sleep is just a big waste of their time. They try to manage on a minimal amount and often boast about their “macho” achievement.

But they are selling themselves short. They don’t realize just how impaired they have become nor how accident prone a lack of sleep can make them. Sleep deprivation is  especially dangerous if we drive says Dr. Christopher Drake, a clinical psychologist at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders and Research Center.

“People tend not to recognize or not to put a lot of emphasis on that extra boost that they may get (from a full night’s sleep).”

When we do have time to sleep many are finding sleep won’t come and they are turning to sleep aids. According to the pharmaceutical information and consulting company IMS Health, 43.1 million sleeping pill prescriptions were dispensed last year, up from 29.2 million in 2001. That doesn’t count over-the-counter sleep aids. Even more Americans choose alcohol, which can actually disrupt sleep.

Dr. Beth Malow, associate professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the medical director of Vanderbilt’s Sleep Disorders Center, says pills can be useful short term but its better to modify behaviors that prevent sleep. This includes reducing caffeine intake and not taking caffeine at all in the afternoon, getting plenty of exercise etc.

A recently published by researchers at the University of Warwick and University College London with 10,000 participants, has found that the risk of death from cardiovascular disease doubles for those suffering from constant lack of sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation results in higher blood pressure which increases the risk of a cardiac infarction or a stroke.

But this risk was much more pronounced for women. Women who sleep less than five hours a night are twice as likely to develop hypertension than men who slept for five hours a night. The findings indicate that individuals who cut their sleeping to five hours or less a night face a 1.7-fold increased risk in death from all causes. Researchers believe a lack of sleep may be also associated with the increased risk of gaining weight and developing type II diabetes.

Sleep isn’t optional. Insomnia is a serious matter because sleep is absolutely vital for us and most other creatures. I am not trying to scare you, just trying to encourage you to do whatever it takes to cure your of your sleeplessness.

Lack of sleep has been the cause of numerous accidents and combined with alcohol it can be lethal. People who have a large sleep debt are a great danger both to themselves and others. When we are overtired we take mini sleeps without even realizing it. Notice how often driver fatigue is mentioned in various accidents reported in the press. The one we probably remember best is the Exon Valdize, but airplane and road traffic accidents are frequently put down to driver fatigue. While most would not drive when drunk the idea of driving when tired does not set off the same alarm bells, but it should.

Research has shown that there are many problems associated with chronic sleep deprivation. That is sleep deprivation that has built up over several weeks or months. Here are some of them:

• Lack of sleep can shorten your life. Death from all causes is lowest among adults who get seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and significantly higher among those who sleep less than seven.
  

• The immune system is impaired. Sleep researcher Eve van Cauter at the University of Chicago gave flu vaccine to subjects who had slept only four hours per night for the previous six nights. Their immune systems produced only half the normal number of antibodies in response. This study also showed:
  

1. Heart rates and blood pressure were raised.
2. Insulin resistance, a pre-diabetic condition that affects glucose tolerance and produces weight gain developed.
3. Leptin levels were reduced. Leptin is secreted by fat cells and inhibits appetite, so weight gain would eventually result from lost sleep. Other studies have shown similar results.
   

• Intellectual performance is reduced. Critical thinking plummets, so don’t stay up all night cramming for an exam.

• Reaction time is slowed which could be fatal in some situations especially if you are a doctor, airline pilot or even just drive a car.

So the bottom line is that no matter how hard it is to follow a sensible sleep hygiene plan you must do it. Insomnia must be taken seriously and a cure pursued.