More Sleep, Please

I just finished reading “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker and was so stuck by the power of sleep and the lack of it we get, that I decided to use this blog to recommend this book. Sunday morning I sat down with the Star Tribune and my expresso and was surprised and encouraged to see the front page of the Variety section article “You Snooze, You Win”. This is the start of their 30-day sleep challenge. If you didn’t see the article you can go to startribune.com/sleep and/or join the Facebook group bit.ly/STsleepy.

To summarize Walker’s book, I offer some interesting points:

• The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span.
• Sleep is the most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day.
• Humans need consistently more than 7 hours of sleep per night to maintain cognitive performance.  Chronic sleep loss is linked to Alzheimer’s, anxiety, depression, strokes, cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, infertility, weight management difficulties and immune deficiency.
• We cannot “sleep back” lost sleep by binge sleeping on the weekends or on vacation.
• REM sleep fuels creativity, alcohol suppresses REM sleep.
• Factors that impact a good night sleep include lighting (turn down the lights in the evening), temperature (turn down the temperature for better sleep), electronic devices (don’t use prior to bedtime), alcohol and caffeine (both sleep disruptors).
• Extreme sleep deprivation cognitively impairs the brain similarly to being legally drunk.

We all have a circadian rhythm, however not all our sleep habits are the same. Some people are up early and most productive in the morning – these morning larks make up about 40% of the population. Then there are those who prefer to stay up late and wake late, finding their productivity later in the day or evening – these night owls make up about 30% of the population. The remaining 30% are somewhere in between, leaning toward more productivity in the evening.

FUN FACTS

Elephants need only 4 hours of sleep each day, while the Brown Bat sleeps 19 hours each day.

Dolphins, whales and some birds can uncouple their brains and sleep with half their brains, while the other half continues to function awake. Dang wouldn’t that be cool!