Sleep Restoration and Deprivation: Investigating Health Impacts in Both Cases
Originally published by A Voice For Choice Advocacy on November 28, 2024.
EDITOR’S SUMMARY: Lifestyle practices carry significant importance in influencing your day to day health. What you eat, and how you move your body and manage stress are key, and perhaps at the top of the list is the quality of sleep you get. Undisturbed, deep slumber fosters repair and regeneration to all systems of the body. If you’re overstimulated at night, endlessly toss and turn, or consistently feel unrested in the morning, finding creative ways to prepare yourself for meaningful shuteye may be worthwhile.
By Verity Bell
The regenerative power of sleep has long been recognized. Shakespeare famously pondered its benefits in a scene from Macbeth, in which the insomnia-afflicted protagonist lamented:?
“Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.”?
Clearly, you don’t need science to make you aware you need good sleep. How you feel when you’re sleep deprived is ample confirmation of that. So what function does sleep serve, and how significant is its role in your health? These are questions research studies have addressed, and the results are revealing. Sleep is responsible for multiple processes in your brain and body, some of which are so crucial to the maintenance of both, that the consequences of running a deficit are serious. The quality and quantity of your sleep affect hormone regulation, metabolism, gut health, mental health, cognition, resistance to infection, and your susceptibility to strokes, heart attacks, cancer, and dementia.
Physiology, Environment, and Health Associations
In the study, “Sleep habits and Susceptibility to the Common Cold,” volunteers who had slept less than seven hours on average were found to be almost three times more likely to succumb to a cold virus administered via nasal drops, than those who had averaged more than eight. This supports the idea that exposure to pathogens is not necessarily the? decisive factor in determining whether or not you get sick. It can depend to a large extent on the strength of your immune system, for which adequate sleep is key. Categorical evidence for the connection between sleep and immunity was provided by the study, “Partial sleep deprivation reduces natural killer cell activity in humans,” which showed a 72% decline in natural killer cells when participants slept four hours a night compared to when they slept eight. Since natural killer cells are your body’s first line of defense against tumors, as well as infection, it should come as no surprise that lack of sleep has been correlated to cancer risk. In “Sleep quality and risk of cancer: findings from the English longitudinal study of aging,” involving 10,036 subjects, it was concluded:
“Even a moderately impaired sleep quality was associated with a 33% increased risk of incident cancer at the 8-year follow-up, and a greater increase of 59% was observed for severely impaired quality.”??
What’s more, a larger investigation, based on 23,620 people, “Association of Sleep Duration with Chronic Diseases in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam Study,” correlated sleep deficits not only with cancer, but also with diabetes and cardiovascular disease (such as heart attack and stroke). Participants, for instance, who slept less than 6 hours a night increased their risk of stroke by 41%, heart attack by 44–78%, and diabetes by 6–41%. What explains this elevated risk? Sleep deprivation contributes to a rise in blood glucose levels, and calcification of the blood vessels (a precursor for heart disease). A significant reason for this has to do with the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol promotes wakefulness, and is involved in the fight or flight response. As this reaction requires energy, cortisol releases glucose from the liver into the bloodstream. At the same time, it decreases sensitivity to insulin (which is involved in storing glucose) in order to keep the glucose readily available. Elevated blood sugar triggers inflammation, which damages blood vessels. Whether increased cortisol is a cause or consequence of insomnia is still being explored, and seems likely the relationship is reciprocal. But one thing that is well established is that cardiovascular disease and diabetes are related. As stated in the article, “Diabetes, Heart Disease, & Stroke,” from The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases:
“High blood glucose from diabetes can damage your blood vessels and the nerves that control your heart and blood vessels. Over time, this damage can lead to heart disease. People with diabetes tend to develop heart disease at a younger age than people without diabetes. Adults with diabetes are nearly twice as likely to have heart disease or stroke as adults without diabetes.”
Compounding the blood sugar issue, lack of sleep has been found to upregulate the appetite stimulating hormone ghrelin, while downregulating the satiation signaling hormone leptin (ghrelin is believed to increase cravings for sweets). For this reason, sleep loss has been identified as a risk factor for obesity. Even more concerning, these inflammation-related issues: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and poor sleep, are predisposing factors for the development of Alzheimer’s. “Greater Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease in Older Adults with Insomnia,” involving 346 people, found that insomnia increased the risk of Alzheimer’s by 136%.?
This makes sense when you consider two major functions that sleep has been found to serve: draining metabolic waste from the brain, and consolidating memories. The first of these occurs during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep by means of the recently discovered glial-lymphatic or “glymphatic” system, and the second during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, toward the end of the cycle. According to the authors of the review, “Glymphatic system: an emerging therapeutic approach for neurological disorders,” the glymphatic system clears the proteins implicated in Alzheimer’s disease (as well as other neurodegenerative diseases) from the brain, and the system’s flow is strongest during the deepest phase of sleep.
Due to the gut-brain axis (the network of nerves through which gut bacteria send chemical signals), there is a relationship between sleep, and both gut health and mental health (mediated by inflammation). Put simply, certain kinds of bacteria produce inflammatory toxins that have been linked to insomnia, depression, schizophrenia, and dementia, while other kinds have been found to alleviate negative emotional states and promote immunity. In other words, if you have a diverse microbiome populated primarily by beneficial bacteria, studies suggest that you are much less likely to suffer from either insomnia or mental health issues. It is even postulated that sleep deprivation may have an impact on the composition of your microbiome. Given the importance of sleep to both mind and body, insomnia can lead you to feel desperate.?
So if you are tempted to resort to a quick fix in the form of a sleeping pill, antihistamine, or alcohol, it’s understandable. Unfortunately, antihistamines, alcohol, and most sleeping pills are sedatives which tend to reduce the depth and restorative quality of your sleep. Sleeping pills can have concerning side effects, are potentially addictive, and may increase your risk of cancer and mortality. Antihistamines like Benadryl that contain diphenhydramine may contribute to dementia. In short, if avoiding health problems is your goal, the? most productive solution to insomnia is to identify and remediate the cause. Commitment and detective work might be called for, as the modern world is rife with sleep disruptors. This is due in no small part to the impact of technology on circadian rhythms.
Circadian rhythms refer to the diurnal and seasonal cycles of the earth; they inform physiological processes in ways you may not be consciously aware of. If it seems strange to think that sleep could be strongly influenced by something external to your body, you need only look at the relationship between seasonal changes and hibernation in certain species, or between lunar cycles and the breeding behaviors of others. Living organisms are designed to respond to external cues, particularly light, in ways that enhance their survival. The problem for humans, when it comes to sleep, is that technology’s unnatural cues are increasingly interfering with earth’s natural ones. All artificial light after dark throws off circadian rhythms, inhibiting your brain’s production of melatonin. The blue light given off by electronics, fluorescent bulbs, and many LEDs does so to an even greater degree. To make matters worse, the electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) that have come to blanket the globe have similarly detrimental effects both on health and sleep.
Taking Proactive Steps
What can you do to mitigate these influences? The answer to this question depends to some extent on how willing you are to prioritize your need for good quality sleep. To be fair, living with other people may place restrictions on your autonomy, and if your home has a smart meter or is close to a cell tower, controlling your EMF exposure may require you to go to greater lengths. But in the absence of challenges of this kind, the following action items can go a long way toward minimizing obstacles to deep, restorative sleep:
To go a step further, you can have a building biologist evaluate the levels of EMFs in your home, and propose mitigation strategies. Of course, technological influences are not the only factors that contribute to insomnia; here is a general checklist of sleep hygiene recommendations:
In the article, “The FDA’s War Against Sleep,” A Midwestern Doctor, the author of the Substack, “The Forgotten Side of Medicine,” proposed a further cause for insomnia in the form of impaired drainage from the head (of blood, glymphatics, or bioenergy). They associated this problem, in turn, with poor zeta potential. Generally speaking, zeta potential has to do with “the ability of particles to stay suspended in solution,” although at the level of blood plasma it relates to the electrical charge of your red blood cells. If you have optimal zeta potential, your red blood cells will have a negative charge, causing them to repel each other sufficiently for blood to flow freely. If your zeta potential is poor on the other hand, a positive charge will draw them together, leading to the worst case scenario of clumping or clotting.
This author recommended various remediation strategies for impaired drainage, one of which being inclined bed therapy. This involves placing objects like books under the base of the upper part of your bed to elevate it about an inch so that your head is slightly higher than the rest of your body. (A pillow, it was emphasized, will not have the same effect, as this folds your body at the diaphragm rather than creating a vertical slant). Other recommendations included: physical exercise, taking a hot bath (since heating the lower part of your body can assist with drainage), chiropractic or cranial sacral adjustment (if the obstruction to drainage is structural), and liposomal melatonin (a form that is easily absorbed). Strategies specific to the zeta potential issues that may underlie the drainage problem were also discussed, including epsom salt baths, electrical grounding with an earthing mat, and a supplement called zeta aid. In the event that your insomnia is anxiety related, they recommended a homeopathic called Calms Forte, magnesium threonate, and lithium orotate, all of which relax the central nervous system.?
As you age, decreases in your body’s production of growth hormone and melatonin can create a challenge in getting a good night’s sleep. This may not translate into a loss of total hours (or if it does, it’s generally not more than half an hour), but it can affect quality, making your sleep shallow and fragmented. Nonetheless, your baseline can be improved through commitment to the interventions described above. One size does not fit all as far as supplements are concerned, so you’ll need to experiment to find what works for you. You can monitor your progress with a sleep tracker if you are interested in an objective diagnostic measurement. While sleep trackers emit EMFs, which this article has identified as disruptive to health and sleep, the Oura Ring emits less EMFs than comparable products, and can be used in airplane mode. It consists of a wearable, chargeable ring that transfers data about your sleep quality and quantity to your phone or tablet.
All this said, the greatest obstacles to sleep restoration are often psychological or cultural in nature. American culture, in particular, perhaps more than any in the Western world, encourages prioritizing work and productivity over self-care. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” is an expression sometimes heard, and while this tends to be said in a joking tone, the irony is that the attitude underlying it may well hasten that eventuality. You might justify not committing to the discipline of a regular sleep schedule by telling yourself you can get used to sleeping less, or that lost sleep can be caught up on over the weekend. However, evidence does not support either of these ideas. Even if you feel as if you have adjusted to the point of needing to sleep less, that does not mean the deficit is not taking its toll. Just as you can be convinced that your judgment has not been compromised after drinking alcohol, perception does not always reflect reality. Likewise, catching up on lost sleep, although possible to a certain degree, may be less achievable than you’d like to think. In the words of Rob Newsome and Dr. Anis Rehman, authors of “Sleep Debt: The Hidden Cost of Insufficient Rest”:
“While both napping and sleeping in on weekends may help ease symptoms like fatigue or daytime sleepiness, they are often not enough to adequately recover from sleep debt. The accumulating effects of sleep loss is a debt that takes longer to repay. Research has shown that it can take up to four days to recover from one hour of lost sleep and up to nine days to completely eliminate sleep debt.”
Altogether, as the authors of “Sleep and Cardio-Metabolic disease” pointed out, what science has revealed about sleep is that far from being an idle state that “pertains exclusively to the brain,” it is “an active physiological process greatly needed by [y]our body to sustain vital functions, in the short as well as in the longer term.” So if you feel unsure about making proactive changes to your daily routine, in the interest of getting seven to nine hours of quality sleep per night, it may be worth examining your reasons. In evaluating your priorities, remember that investments in the future of your health are most precious, and worth your time and attention.
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