Get Your Sleep On

For many of us, sleep is hardly ever long enough or good enough. According to the National Institutes of health, approximately 30 percent of adults complain of problems sleeping. The consequences of inadequate sleeping patterns go far beyond feeling tired the next day. Those of us who average less than six hours of sleep a night have been shown to have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases, as well as being more likely to eat more, which lead to excess weight gain.

THE FINDINGS

Getting a good night's sleep can be far from easy for many of us. Women tend to sleep longer and sounder than men, although women complain more than men about their sleeping difficulties. Researchers are unsure whether this is because women are more willing to speak up, or if they're not measuring what's making women feel as though their sleep is not as refreshing.

Women also tend to get more slow-wave sleep, which is the deep phase of sleep that has been found to be most restful and restorative. As we age, the time we spend in this slow-wave sleep stage decreases. For some, this can begin in our 30's and progressively get worse throughout the years. This may explain why individuals seem to complain of sleeping problems in their later years. Researchers have found that the number of very brief awakenings during the night - usually between 5-20 seconds - increases with age.

The Link Between Lack of Sleep & Chronic Disease
People who habitually sleep six or fewer hours per night are at an increased risk of developing diabetes. Research shows that those individuals who reported sleeping six hours a night or less were 28 percent more likely to later be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes than those who slept seven or eight hours.  The disease was 57 percent more likely among those who had difficulty falling asleep and 84 percent more likely among those who had trouble staying asleep.

Research also shows that individuals who reported sleeping less than six hours per night had a 48 percent greater risk of coronary heart disease than those who slept six to eight hours. Studies have also linked shorter sleep to high blood pressure in men and women under 60 years of age.

Insulin resistance has also been widely researched in connection with sleep deprivation. When researchers restrict young and middle-aged adults to 5 hours of sleep a night for one to two weeks, they become more insulin resistant. If a person's cells are insulin resistant, they will not respond to the hormone, which leads to the pancreas pumping out more and more insulin.When it can't keep up, blood sugar rises and you ultimately end up with diabetes. Insulin resistance, over time, can also lead to weight gain and increases the risk of heart disease.

Weight Gain
Do people who sleep less gain more weight?
In the Nurses' Health Study, those who reported sleeping five hours of sleep per night or less gained approximately 2 1/2 more pounds over 16 years than those who reported sleeping seven hours or more.

There is substantial evidence that shows sleep deprivation leads to an increase in food intake. In a recent study, 30 people in their 30's and 40's ate an average of 300 more calories after being limited to about four hours of sleep per night for four nights than they did when they were allowed to sleep as long as desired for four nights.

Why might a lack of sleep cause people to eat more?
Studies have shown that depriving people of sleep raises their blood levels of ghrelin, a hormone that increases appetite and lowers blood levels of leptin, a hormone that inhibits appetite.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO IMPROVE SLEEP QUALITY?

Exercise

There is extensive research that shows how exercise can greatly improve the quality and duration of sleep. Exercisers report feeling more rested in the morning than those who do not exercise on a regular basis, and tend to wake up fewer times during the first third of the night than non-exercisers. (Both groups slept about the same amount of time - six hours per night.)

Researchers believe that exercise will most likely help individuals whose sleeping patterns are the worst and who have been exercising the least. The benefits of regular exercise also include improved mood, increased energy levels and improved concentration during the day.

Yoga or Simple Stretching

Many individuals who feel sleep deprived have found yoga or simple stretching to be a helpful method of relaxation, which leads to better sleep quality. Incorporating relaxation for brief moments during your day, as well as implementing a brief stretching routine prior to bed time can promote a more restful night of sleep due to the relaxation of muscle fibers and the deep concentration on calming your mind and body. Try dimming the lights and eliminating any sounds that you may find distracting. You may want to turn on some sort of relaxing music while you stretch as well.



Warm Baths

Body temperature is typically high until right before you go to bed, followed by a rapid decline throughout the night. Your body reaches its lowest temperature right before morning. This drop in body temperature is one of the physiological triggers for sleep. Taking a warm bath 90 minutes before bedtime can help to initiate this trigger due to the dissipation of heat afterwards.

SLEEP INHIBITORS

Caffeine
Many people don't realize how much caffeine can truly interfere with sleep. Caffeine affects sleep quality by interfering with adenosine, a compound found in every cell in the body. In the brain, this compound pushes you to sleep. While you're awake during the day, your brain is slowly building up its levels of adenosine. While you sleep, on the other hand, your brain uses up the adenosine, unless you don't sleep long enough to get rid of it all. This is where caffeine comes into play. Caffeine binds to adenosine receptors in the brain, which prevents the compound from entering nerve cells, so it can't make you drowsy.

While most people know that caffeine can disrupt their sleep if consumed too close to bedtime, many don't realize that even consumed earlier in the day can lead to disrupted sleep later in the night. When nine healthy young men who regularly drank one to two caffeinated beverages a day consumed 200mg of caffeine at 7am, their sleep was affected 16 hours later when they went to bed at 11pm, even though they had no more caffeine during the rest of the day and the levels of caffeine in their blood was approaching zero. It took them 11 more minutes to fall into deep sleep, and their total sleep time averaged 10 minutes less than on a night when they consumed a placebo instead of caffeine in the morning. Ten minutes may not sound like a big deal for a single day, but over time, this can lead to sleep deprivation.

Alcohol
If you consume alcohol on occasion just before bedtime, you may find that it will put you to sleep more quickly for the first couple hours and increase your slow-wave sleep. After this time, however, you may notice that the rest of your night's sleep is disturbed or poor quality - waking up often to use the restroom or simply waking up periodically and having a hard time falling back to sleep. The timing of this will depend on how much alcohol you have consumed.

Researchers find that after about two hours or so, your body begins to clear the alcohol out of your system. Fragmented sleep then sets in, which is waking up briefly and repeatedly, and then disrupted sleep, which is wakening from dreams and returning to sleep with difficulty.

If you regularly drink alcohol to fall asleep, its sleep-inducing effect eventually wears off, but you'll still have fragmented and disrupted sleeping patterns. Women and older individuals are especially vulnerable because the same dose produced higher levels of alcohol in their blood and their brain than it does in men and younger people.

RE-CAP FOR QUALITY SLEEP:

• Sleeping six hours or more per night is recommended to reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and insulin resistance.
• Aerobic exercise is recommended to improve the quality of sleep.
• Try yoga, simple stretching, or relaxation exercises to relax your muscles prior to bedtime.
• Try taking a warm bath prior to bedtime - this may help to set off the physiological trigger for sleep.
• Avoid caffeine and alcohol too close (within 2 hours) to bedtime as both lead to disturbed sleep. If still experiencing problems with sleep, try eliminating one or both from your daily intake to see if your sleep improves.