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Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
11–20 of 74 posts
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#12"Spending 25% more time sleeping increases your life expectancy by 25%." Awesome.
But that extra time spent sleeping is time spent not being awake to do things. So the overall number of useful hours is the same either way?
The longer you live, the better become available treatments in the meantime to make your life even longer. ;)
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#13I once, involuntary, went without sleep for around 72 hours. I was at a music festival and we were either pulling through the night or I couldn't sleep because of the noise. When the time came to go home, I really felt pretty good. At that time I had been awake for around 60 hours. My body was tired and my thinking was a bit sluggish, but nothing too bad... Until I got home and tried to sleep. By then I was feeling d…
That's a crazy story, I could never imagine myself not sleeping for 72 hours!! When I mess up my sleeping schedule pretty bad (which happened a lot back in college), I usually do sleep paralysis when falling asleep (as opposed to when waking up). And I can do it 6 or 7 times in a row, it's a nightmare. Usually though, I realize what's going on (it's happened to me so. many. times.) after the second or third 'paralysis' and sleep on my stomach, which for some reason, allows me to fall asleep without the whole paralysis thing going on. You can actually turn sleep paralysis into a lucid dream if you 'control' it properly. I usually just wake up thinking 'thank god I'm alive' though.
For those interested in sleep paralysis, wikipedia's got a pretty good page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
Sleep is truely fascinating.
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#14I once, involuntary, went without sleep for around 72 hours. I was at a music festival and we were either pulling through the night or I couldn't sleep because of the noise. When the time came to go home, I really felt pretty good. At that time I had been awake for around 60 hours. My body was tired and my thinking was a bit sluggish, but nothing too bad... Until I got home and tried to sleep. By then I was feeling d…
I had a similar experience when my child was born. The birth took about two full days, the last 36 hours of which I didn't sleep. And the first week I slept about 3 hours a night with maybe a few naps during the day.
The strange thing was, I could still function. I couldn't do anything complex, but basic tasks where not much of a problem. However, when I finally had a moment to really sleep. I couldn't. It felt like every time I had to get up to do something, I got an adrenalin rush to be able to do it and all that excitement prevented me from falling a sleep.
I fortunately didn't have any hallucinations, but I can relate to the lucid dreaming. Aside from lack of sleep, I also seem to have this after a very stressful day. I wonder if it is stress related.
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#15"Spending 25% more time sleeping increases your life expectancy by 25%." Awesome.
But that extra time spent sleeping is time spent not being awake to do things. So the overall number of useful hours is the same either way?
> So the overall number of useful hours is the same either way?
Yes but no because your `useful' hours will feel much better.
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#16Is it really such a mystery anymore?
Routine maintenance is prudent for any system. Sleep is a maintenance mode.
At night, the sun goes down, it gets cold, predators come out. You save a ton of energy and maybe your life by avoiding activity at that time. When its cold you burn extra calories just to stay warm.
Haven't biologists got a lot of evidence by now?
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#17One angle not touched on here is the link between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and sleep. There has always been evidence that AD patients sleep less than the general population, but obviously there's a chicken and egg problem here - are they sleeping less because of neuronal disruption caused by the disease, or is the disease progression catalyzed by a lack of sleep[1-3]? While I think this is still an open question, there's growing research that interaction with sleep related systems in the brain can have a major therapeutic impact on the disease itself - obviously this doesn't actually answer if it's 'sleep' or some process related to sleep, but clearly something is going on here [4].
From the press release associated with [4];
The new research, in mice, demonstrates that eliminating the protein – called orexin – made mice sleep for longer periods of time and strongly slowed the production of brain plaques.
“This indicates we should be looking hard at orexin as a potential target for preventing Alzheimer’s disease,” said senior author David M. Holtzman, MD, head of the Department of Neurology. “Blocking orexin to increase sleep in patients with sleep abnormalities, or perhaps even to improve sleep efficiency in healthy people, may be a way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. This is important to explore further.” - [5]
[1] Xie, L., Kang, H., Xu, Q., Chen, M. J., Liao, Y., Thiyagarajan, M., … Nedergaard, M. (2013). Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain. Science, 342(6156), 373–377. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373
[2] Ju, Y.-E. S., McLeland, J. S., Toedebusch, C. D., Xiong, C., Fagan, A. M., Duntley, S. P., … Holtzman, D. M. (2013). Sleep quality and preclinical Alzheimer disease. JAMA Neurology, 70(5), 587–593. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23479184
[3] Ju, Y.-E. S., Lucey, B. P., & Holtzman, D. M. (2013). Sleep and Alzheimer disease pathology - a bidirectional relationship. Nature Reviews. Neurology, 10(2), 115–119. http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/journal/v10/n2/abs/nrneurol.2...
[4] Roh, J. H., Jiang, H., Finn, M. B., Stewart, F. R., Mahan, T. E., Cirrito, J. R., … Holtzman, D. M. (2014). Potential role of orexin and sleep modulation in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 211(13), 2487–2496. http://jem.rupress.org/content/211/13/2487
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#18"Spending 25% more time sleeping increases your life expectancy by 25%." Awesome.
But that extra time spent sleeping is time spent not being awake to do things. So the overall number of useful hours is the same either way?
Also if you sleep well, and live 25% longer, that 25% will be when you're old, senile, and unable to do anything useful.
Studies about sleep are often just crazy. When did people stop using their common sense? Just have as much sleep as you think works for you.
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#19"Spending 25% more time sleeping increases your life expectancy by 25%." Awesome.
"Why a long night's sleep may be bad for you"
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31928434
"Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science"
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-dam...
Re: Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that extra time spent sleeping is time spent not being awake to do things. So the overall number of useful hours is the same either way?
Also if you sleep well, and live 25% longer, that 25% will be when you're old, senile, and unable to do anything useful. Studies about sleep are often just crazy. When did people stop using their common sense? Just have as much sleep as you think works for you.
> Also if you sleep well, and live 25% longer, that 25% will be when you're old, senile, and unable to do anything useful.
That's assuming you do become senile and unable to do anything useful. Doesn't necessarily have to happen, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't live a good life.
> Studies about sleep are often just crazy. When did people stop using their common sense? Just have as much sleep as you think works for you.
What's considered "common sense" can vary greatly from person to person, and people aren't always aware of how their habits can have long-term negative consequences on them.