Book of the Month series round#5
“The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span.”
As the summer days are over, the weather is getting colder and the days are getting shorter, this time of the year also affects people’s well-being. With regards to September being the Suicide Prevention Awareness Month (from 5th till 11th of September), the topic of my current book of the month is sleeping, which can help to prevent this horrible outcome.
Did you know that people with chronic sleep disorders think more about suicide and are more likely to try to kill themselves? Sleep has as much positive as negative effects on our lives.
As quoting the author, there is a link between sleep deprivation and suicidal thoughts and suicide completion in the days or months after.
I personally became quickly intrigued by Matthew Walker’s scientific reasoning about the importance of a regular 8-hour sleep per night. He is an English scientist, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a public intellectual focused on the subject of sleep. As an academic, he has focused on the impact of sleep on human health.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams is the type of book, from which everyone can learn something from. Because of its scientific structure, it is not an easy read, but that doesn’t mean it is not worth spending time reading it.
“Studies of adolescents have identified a link between sleep disruption and suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and, tragically, suicide completion in the days after. One more reason for society and parents to value plentiful sleep in teens rather than chastise it, especially considering that suicide is the second-leading cause of death in young adults in developed nations after car accidents.”
Walker has linked not only suicide or car accidents to poor sleep quality but also states that sleep deprivation can increase the risk of cancer development or developing Alzheimer’s. I wouldn’t take these claims as facts. In an effort to make all of us be aware of the damage that not enough sleep can cause in the long run, he sometimes reports results as facts that science has not yet been able to clearly demonstrate; but even if you read his reporting with a very critical eye, you can agree on this: not getting sufficient sleep when fighting a battle against depression (or cancer, or other diseases) can be likened to pouring gasoline on an already aggressive fire.
So, why do we sleep?
Answering the question in the title, I would say, we sleep because it is essential to us, we as living beings (animals as well) are dependant on sleep.
As Walker concludes, the evolutionary advantages of sleep are far greater than any other physical activity which we normally do in our waking hours (hunting, eating, reproducing, defending ourselves). Sleep produces complex neurochemical reactions that improve our brains in ways, we can’t see, or entirely understand. It helps to fight against diseases threatening the immune system, prevents infection, and can salvage more complex functions of the brain including learning, memory, emotional stability, complex reasoning, or decision making.
An interesting concept to point out, that after 16 hours of being awake the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than 7 hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After 10 days of just 7 hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for 24 hours.
The human mind cannot actually perceive how much it suffers from sleep deprivation when it is sleep deprived.
Interesting takeaways from the book:
- Sleeping pills target the same parts of the brain as alcohol does.
- Alcohol blocks REM sleep → Walker tells us that, as a by-product of your body metabolizing alcohol, the chemical aldehyde is created, and aldehydes are known to block your brain from entering REM sleep. Less REM sleep means fewer dreams.
- He also mentions lucid dreaming, an effect, when you know you are dreaming while you are asleep. It is like being aware that the events you are experiencing in front of you aren’t really happening, but the dream feels vivid and real. You may even be able to control how the action develops, as if you’re directing a movie in your sleep —sounds fascinating, right?
- He recommends CBTI (Cognitive behavioral therapy) for insomnia over sleeping pills
- The quote below is also worth a read:
“Last night, you became flagrantly psychotic. It will happen again tonight. Before you reject this diagnosis, allow me to offer five justifying reasons. First, when you were dreaming last night, you started to see things that were not there — you were hallucinating. Second, you believed things that could not possibly be true — you were delusional. Third, you became confused about time, place, and person — you were disoriented. Fourth, you had extreme swings in your emotions — something psychiatrists call being affectively labile. Fifth (and how delightful!), you woke up this morning and forgot most, if not all, of this bizarre dream experience — you were suffering from amnesia. If you were to experience any of these symptoms while awake, you’d be seeking immediate psychological treatment. ”
I collected some useful tips for better sleep quality:
- stick to a sleep schedule; go to bed and wake up at the same time each day
- avoid the snooze button in the mornings, set an alarm for bedtime
- try to exercise 2 or 3 hours before bedtime
- avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcoholic drinks before bed (alcohol keeps you in the lighter stages of sleep, while caffeine and nicotine disrupts your sleep)
- don’t take naps after 3 PM
- dark bedroom, cool bedroom, gadget-free bedroom
- have the right sunlight exposure during the day
- don’t lie in bed awake (you’ll get more anxious, do some relaxing activity instead)
So, without further ado, I would recommend Matthew Walker’s book to those who are interested in the big why’s and are eager to know more about the scientific aspects of what’s behind our primal need for sleep.
