Yet another interesting piece of research on sleep. It seems like researchers found that sleep deprivation can make your brain implode. Scary, yeah?
Hello my loyal readers! Today I woke up pretty early because I had an awesome hike planned out down a canyon and up the bay. I had it all planned so that I could leave and get to the top to watch the sunrise, then steadily head to the bay under the soft, orange glow of early morning. When I got home to do my writing, I realized what I did could be damaging my brain?
Sleep Deprivation and Neurodegeneration
So here’s why I sort of gave myself brain damage: Scientists ran tests on mice that were sleep-deprived and found that their brains were eating themselves. Well, it’s sort of a misleading statement. All of our brains eat themselves. All of our brains have astrocytes and microglial cells that eat dead brain cells and remove superfluous synapses so that you can think and process more efficiently.
In normal mice that sleep well, only 8 percent of their synapses have these two types of brain janitors active. But in the sleep-deprived mice, 13.5 percent of their synapses were bustling with these brain janitors.
And that’s why these scientists got surprised and made an announcement that not getting enough sleep (like when I woke up too early to go on my sunrise adventure) means more of these brain janitors will be eating more of your brain. They say it might not be so bad in the short term because you’ll have a more efficient brain – but they fear that in the long term, such OCD brain cleanup may lead to neurodegeneration. It’s kind of like if you scan your hard drive for errors everyday – it’s good and bad because it does damage to your hard drive the more you keep doing it.
Other Problems Caused by Sleep Deprivation
Not sleeping enough can lead to other problems too. Researchers found that your body expresses fewer important genes when you haven’t hit the hay enough. These genes include the ones that have to do with regulating inflammation and metabolism.
I’m sure by now you know that inflammation is pretty bad. Lots of diseases have been linked with being caused by increased inflammation, including cancer and heart disease. If you don’t get enough sleep, your inflammation-controlling genes will be out of whack and you’ll be putting yourself at more risk for these scary diseases.
Of course, if your metabolism-regulating genes are affected, then you know that spells weight loss problems. Even if you don’t eat, your body just won’t be burning as many carbs and fat passively. You might also have more blood sugar circulating in your system. This can only mean you’re going to pack more pounds and increase your risk for developing diabetes. So basically, not sleeping enough means you’ll gain weight.
Oh and of course, your beauty is at risk too! Researchers found that 65 percent of high schoolers in Asia who have acne are also sleep-deprived. They said that the high percentage of fatigue in that population means that there’s a correlation between acne and sleeping. They concluded that not getting enough sleep can cause or worsen acne. Plus, remember that your inflammation risk is greater when you don’t get enough sleep – so that means that your body is less able to suppress any acne, which is basically a form of inflammation.
Meditation and Sleeping
If you find it hard to sleep enough at night, you should meditate everyday. Actually, you should meditate everyday regardless. Meditation has been found to boost your IQ and lengthen your life (as well as improve your heart health). So there’s no downside to meditating, and it’s something I personally think everyone should be required to do.
But when it comes to sleeping, meditating helps too. It turns out that regularly meditating makes your body need less sleep. Scientists from the University of Kentucky found that regular meditators need only 5.2 hours of sleep per night – while normal people need about seven or more.
And there you have it – if you don’t sleep long enough, your brain will eat itself more. It can also cause acne, heart disease, cancer, and weight gain! But, if you meditate a lot, then you’ll need less sleep – so that sort of lessens any sleep deprivation.
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