Wednesday, July 09, 2008

What I Do Best

I’d like to talk about one of my favorite activities, and something at which I myself am something of an expert. It’s sleeping.

That’s right. I am a national caliber sleeper. I can (and have) slept in horse stalls, in every moving vehicle I’ve ever entered, and during most physical activities. (Use your imagination if you must.) I can sleep while talking, while others are talking and during mastication. (No, you pervert, I said mastication.) In fact, my skill in the sleep arena is so stupendous some say it borders on narcolepsy. But I don’t care. I love to sleep.

I don’t mean to lord it over anyone, but I’ve got to tell you, if there was an Olympic sleeping event I would be a gold medalist. Well, okay, I may have to share the podium with my sister because when we used to have sleeping contests (that’s right, I said sleeping contests) she would sometimes win.

However, I’m told that 60 millions Americans have difficulties falling asleep and that’s sad because, there’s nothing better than sleep. In my own humble opinion, few things come close. For example, I can go 36 hours without chocolate if it’s absolutely necessary; I can’t say the same about sleep. So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some facts I learned from the National Sleep Foundations' website.

Here goes:

A majority of American adults (63%) do not get the recommended eight hours of sleep needed for good health, safety, and optimum performance. In fact, nearly one-third (31%) report sleeping less than seven hours each week night, though many adults say they try to sleep more on weekends.

Before Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb, people slept an average of 10 hours a night; today Americans average 6.9 hours of sleep on weeknights and 7.5 hours per night on weekends.

Perhaps you can hear my heart breaking from where you sit, because, beyond the fact that sleep is totally awesome, lack of sleep can cause a host of problems. I’ll list of few of them below. (I’ll also add my own thoughts in italics, just because I find myself so danged amusing--and to keep myself awake.)

1. Lack of sleep makes you ravenous: According to a December 2004 University of Chicago study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, partial sleep deprivation alters your level of hunger hormones, making you not only hungrier all day, but seriously jonesing for calorie-dense, high-carbohydrate fare.

2. Lack of sleep makes it harder to exercise: When you wake up tired, it is increasingly more difficult to find the motivation and energy to exercise, which, as you progress through life, is mission critical in your ability to not only lose weight, but maintain weight loss. This sets up a vicious cycle of lack of energy that leads to lack of exercise that fosters a poorer sleep that leads to lack of energy. At some point, you need to just dive in and make an exercise intervention.
Oh come on--it’s always hard to exercise.

3. Lack of sleep dramatically increases your risk of obesity: Research by the University of Warwick linked sleep deprivation with an near doubling in the chance of becoming obese. More recently, a 2007 University of Michigan study revealed a strong correlation between childhood obesity and lack of adequate sleep (9-hours). Every additional hour of sleep in 6th-grade decreased a child’s likely of being overweight by 20%, while every additional hour of sleep in 3rd-grade decreased the risk of being overweight in 6th-grade by a whopping 40%. A University of Texas at Houston study similarly showed the odds of obesity in adolescents increased 80-percent for each hour of lost sleep. And, things don’t get better any as we get older, more stressed, less active and sleep even less.
Well you gotta admit, when you’re sleeping, you’re probably not eating.

4. Lack of sleep make you less discerning: A 2007 study presented at the21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies revealed a serious drop in the ability of airport screeners to detect high-risk items. And, that problem worsened at the participated slept less.

Duh!

5. Lack of sleep decreases cognitive function & memory: Much of what we learn during the day is processed and integrated while we sleep. So, when we disrupt our sleep, we mess with not only our ability to form memories, but to understand and utilize new information. This leads to poorer performance both at work and in school. Dr. Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University recently studied the effects of a slightly shortened sleep period in 4th and 6th graders. After three days getting just 30-minutes less sleep, the average 6th grader had the cognitive function of a 4th-grader. A second study from the University of Minnesota revealed the Average A-student got 36-more minutes of sleep than the average D-student. Moved by this and other evidence, the high school in Edina, Minnesota pushed its start-time from 7:30am to 8:25am and saw a jump in SAT scores from the top 10% of students from 1288 to 1500. Yes, you read that right!

6. Lack of sleep makes you nasty.
I and everyone who has ever crossed my proverbial path can attest to this fact.

So how can we improve our sleeping habits?

Exercise: Exercising 3-6 hours before going to sleep increases your body temperature and there is some evidence to suggest that the gradual decrease in temperature that follows help lull you into sleep. A Stanford University School of Medicine study of 55 to 75 year old sedentary individuals who struggled with insomnia revealed that adding 20-30 minutes of exercise every other day cut the time needed to fall asleep in half and increased sleep time by nearly one hour. Plus, it’ll help discharge a lot of daytime stress and anxiety and we all know how important it is to overall health.

Alcohol & caffeine Simple. It takes about 2-hours to metabolize an ounce of alcohol, so try to limit intake to no more than one drink at least 2-hours before bedtime. Caffeine metabolizes far more slowly. a large cup of coffee could take up to 15 hours to fully metabolize, so the general rule is no caffeine after lunch.

Go to sleep at a consistent time. Establish a consistent sleep time and make it a strong priority to keep to that time, even on weekends. Over time, this helps train your system to expect and accept sleep more readily.

Develop a routine. Along the same lines, create a specific bedtime routine that you can repeat every night before retiring. This helps program your mind to ease into sleep more readily.

Avoid napping during the day. If you nap throughout the day, it is no wonder that you will not be able to sleep at night. The late afternoon for most people is a "sleepy time." Many people will take a nap at that time. This is generally not a bad thing to do, provided you limit the nap to 30-45 minutes and can sleep well at night.

I have no idea why they’re trying to ruin my life with this nonsense.

Avoid heavy, spicy, or sugary foods 4-6 hours before bedtime. These can affect your ability to stay asleep.

Block out all distracting noise, and eliminate as much light as possible.
I’m told by those who should know that this one will also help you avoid cancer. Wow, huh?

There you have it--motivation to get more and better sleep. So what about you? How are your sleep habits? Do you suffer from apnea? Restless leg syndrome? Insomnia? Or are you, like me, an expert in the field?