Author: Julie Ryan

Society seems to believe that if you sleep more than eight hours you are lazy. However, there are many of us who simply wouldn’t survive on just eight hours a night. I am one of those. I typically sleep 10 or more hours a night, and I’m usually in bed for about 12 hours or more a night.
I’ve always needed more sleep. Growing up I could sleep late even after going to bed early. Mornings were never my friend, but I wasn’t really a night owl either. If I did stay up really late I would sleep into the afternoon. I’m still that way. I can force myself to wake up with less than 10 hours of sleep but it’s not easy and I don’t perform particularly well when I do so.

Why do some of us need more sleep?

Why do I need so much sleep? I sleep longer for the same reason that some people can be perfectly alert and chipper on just four hours of sleep a night. It’s genetic.
Ying-Hui Fu, PhD, isolated the gene mutation that she believes is responsible for those who can easily get by on just four hours of sleep a night. While they haven’t isolated exactly why some of us need 10 or more hours of sleep, there is a name for it. The term is “long sleepers,” and we make up approximately 2 percent of the population. Although it’s referred to as a disorder, there are no negative side effects, unless we don’t get the 10 to 12 hours of sleep our bodies crave. Who knows, maybe one day they’ll isolate a gene mutation that explains my excessive need to sleep.
Long sleeping has been correlated to the introverted personality type. Introverts are easily tired out by interacting with others; so, it’s possible that we just need more sleep to handle those interactions. The American Sleep Association advises that we not fight our need for sleep as doing so may cause more issues. Rather we should do our best to live with it.

What can we do about it?

There’s not much we can do about our need for more sleep since it is hardwired. however, you do have control over your sleep schedule. By going to bed at the same time each night and having a set wake time each morning you can help your body learn to expect the pattern. Our biological clocks (yes, there are more than one) work on patterns and when we go to bed or get up at different times we are messing with those patterns.
The best thing you can do is have a set bedtime ritual and go to bed at the same time, and use an alarm to wake you up at the same time. Your body learns these patterns and even if you struggle to fall asleep and lay in bed reading for a while it helps your body learn and adjust to the pattern.
Speaking of reading, if you must read in bed get a tablet and set the brightness to low, with white text on a black background. This not only reduces the lighting in your bedroom, it reduces the flicker associated with electronic devices making it easier to fall asleep.
You may also want to try taking melatonin two hours before your set bedtime to help your brain send the proper “it’s time to go to sleep” signals to your body.
If you haven’t always had a need for long sleep, but developed it later in life you should talk to your doctor so that they can check you for other sleep disorders. Long sleep isn’t typically found with other sleep disorders, but the need for excessive sleep developed later in life may be a sign of other problems.
Don’t feel bad about needing more sleep than average. There’s a reason they call it average, our need for long sleep just balances out those folks who can get by on four hours. We simply have to work with what we are given and make the best use of the time when we are awake.

There have been many mornings that I’ve awakened to find my brain alert but my body unable (or was it unwilling?) to move. I always attributed it to a slow waking process and I wasn’t far from the truth. Those mornings never really bothered me, even though there have been a few over the years when that slow waking process took what felt like hours.

There was one instance, however, that really freaked me out. A few years back I was having a lot of trouble sleeping and also suffering from fatigue during the day. One of my doctors had me try a new sleep medication to see if it would help. I slipped this little pill under my tongue and let it dissolve and I soon dissolved away into dreamland. The problem was when I woke up about two hours later feeling as if someone had mummified me. It literally felt like someone had tied ropes or cloth around my entire body. I laid there in a panic, because even though I was fairly sure it was a side effect of the medication I had no idea how long it would last. Needless to say that was the last night I took that medication.

Whether it’s the slow waking or the sense that you are tied up, have an elephant on your stomach, or that you are being attacked. Sleep paralysis isn’t uncommon and it’s closely related to night terrors.

Past theories about sleep paralysis have covered everything from hallucinations to evil spirts stealing your soul. But, don’t worry the truth about sleep paralysis is that it’s nothing to worry about and a completely normal part of waking up. Chances are that it occurs to some degree every morning but that most of the time it is over before you can even acknowledge it.

When you sleep the pons (the part of your brain that controls movement) sends out signals shutting down movement. This is to protect you and those around you. Can you imagine if you acted out all those crazy dreams you have? You’d likely wake up covered in bruises (and so would anyone around you). A few of us have problems with those signals being sent properly and that can result in sleep walking, eating, driving, or even punching and kicking in your sleep.

When you wake up it takes a bit of time for your brain to send signals out to all the nerves and muscles in your body letting them know that they should also wake up. The conscious part of your brain wakes up first, then it sends signals to your spinal cord telling it to wake up. It’s during that interval between the two that you will likely experience sleep paralysis. Once those messages are delivered to the spinal cord and it wakes up, you can move normally and all is, once again, right with the world.

So, the next time you wake up and start freaking out that you can’t move a muscle, don’t worry. You won’t be paralyzed forever. Chances are that by the time you’ve even fully processed that you can’t move your toes will already be wiggling and your body will be as alert as your mind.

I remember the first time the night terrors started. I don’t recall exactly what the first one was, but the one that stands out the most was seeing a confederate soldier standing in the bedroom and the next thing I know my husband is holding me and trying to wake me up. Normally, I have to have the room completely dark in order to sleep, but after waking up from a night terror there was no way I could turn the light back off. The fear (the terror) would stay with me long after the image faded. There were many over that period, I saw my dead grandmother, I saw weird random shapes zooming in through the window, I saw scary people (and people who shouldn’t have been scary at all). That period of night terrors lasted several months during 2008. Thankfully, they went away as fast as they started, once we determined what was causing them.

What are night terrors?

It’s important to understand that night terrors are very different than the common nightmare which occurs during REM sleep. Night terrors typically occur during non-REM sleep and may be caused by a slight waking during the transition between sleep stages. Because parts of your brain are still asleep and parts are awake, it may be that a part of the dream you were having seeped into your consciousness as you wakened slightly, making those elements appear in the real world around you. This gives a whole new understanding to “Nightmare on Elm Street” doesn’t it?

Night terrors are most common in small children and may be the reason why you find your child screaming in the middle of the night certain that there is a monster in the closet, or a person looking in the window, even though that window is closed with a blind over it so that the child couldn’t see the person if they were really out there. While they are most common in children, night terrors can also occur in adults, although they are extremely rare.

Night terrors are not just difficult for the person who experiences them, they are hard on everyone who has to live with that person. The screams that typically accompany the night terrors will wake anyone in the house, and may wake the neighbors depending on how close they are. I’ve woken up with sore throats from the screams that accompany my night terrors.

A person experiencing a night terror is often difficult to wake. They are screaming yet they are asleep. They are seeing the room around them yet they are not fully conscious.

What causes night terrors?

The most common cause of night terrors is simply stress. But, as I found, there are other causes. A number of medications can cause night terrors, including antihistamines which disrupt the sleep cycles. Some blood pressure medications can also cause night terrors. That bout of night terrors I suffered in 2008 was the result of antihistamines. The night terrors returned again just a few months ago and while they disappeared just as quickly I’m still unsure of the cause. It may have been a blood pressure medication, or even stress.

Night terrors have also been linked to migraines, restless leg syndrome, gastric reflux, and sleep apnea. Adults who suffer from night terrors also commonly have a history of anxiety or depression. It is unknown if these links show a potential cause and effect, or if it’s simply a matter of having one increases the likelihood of having the other.

Can you stop night terrors?

Children who suffer from night terrors typically outgrow it. Adults, like myself, that live with night terrors may not be so lucky. If you can find the cause you might be able to stop the night terrors by removing it.

Some suggestions include waking the person up about 90 minutes after they fall asleep, this is the time they would usually wake with the night terror. Doing so can prevent the night terror, but it can also disrupt their sleep cycles and there’s no guarantee they won’t just have the night terror during a later cycle. Some sleep medications can also help prevent night terrors, but again these disrupt the sleep cycle, which can lead to daytime sleepiness and mental fogginess.

Sometimes they just stop on their own. This is typically the case for children who eventually “outgrow” the night terrors.

If you are an adult with night terrors, take a close look at the medications you are using. Research each one to see it may disrupt sleep cycles, or cause night terrors. And, don’t be embarrassed to talk to your doctor about what you are dealing with. He may be able to help you find the answer and stop the night terrors.

It’s no big deal to stay up a little later at night than normal, we figure we won’t miss the sleep or that we can just go to bed a little earlier the next night and “make it up” but the truth of the matter is that it’s a pretty big deal to our bodies. Adults need at least seven hours of sleep per night, and many need nine or more. Whether it’s a night out partying or you just couldn’t make yourself shut down Facebook that lack of sleep is costing you.

Let’s take a look at a few reasons why keeping that regular bedtime is a good idea.

1. Sleep improves memory and learning.

REM sleep is especially important for learning and memory consolidation; without it you’ll find that your memory becomes impaired and learning suffers. Babies get the highest amount of REM sleep and the amount decreases as we age, but no matter our age, REM sleep is important and necessary. You typically get most of your REM sleep early in the morning, which means that the less sleep you get, the less REM sleep you get and the more likely you are to see decreased memory and ability to learn. If this isn’t a good reason to get to bed early, I don’t know what is.

2. Sleep decreases your risk of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the body about two hours before bedtime, and studies have indicated that this hormone may decrease estrogen levels which may not only decrease the risk of certain cancers (including breast cancer) but may also help prevent or reduce endometriosis. Regular secretion of melatonin relies on a regular bedtime making it important to stick to a regular sleep schedule. And, guys don’t think this is just about women. Not getting enough sleep also decreases the number of natural killer cells (the cells that fight off cancer) in your body, which increases your risk for all types of cancer.

Lack of sleep has also recently been linked to Alzheimer’s disease as at best an early warning sign. Because deep sleep is important for memory consolidation and learning it’s possible that a lack of sleep over time may actually cause Alzheimer’s disease.

3. Sleep improves your immune system.

Your immune system needs sleep. It’s no coincidence that when you are sick you sleep more it’s because sleep is your body’s way of healing. Slow wave sleep is necessary for healing and tissue repair, so it makes sense that not getting enough sleep would decrease your immune system and your body’s ability to heal itself. In an interview with Mother Jones, sleep psychologist Matt Walker pointed out that getting just four hours of sleep for one night, impairs your immune system function by about 70 percent. Get some rest!

4. Sleep aids in healing. I’ve already addressed that sleep improves your immune system but that’s not the only way that it helps with healing. Slow wave sleep is important for helping the body rejuvenate and heal. This is delta wave sleep which is most evident early in the evening, but it does continue throughout the night. As we age we get less and less slow wave deep sleep, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important and the fact that we are getting less of it as we age is a good reason why it’s more important to ensure we get a full night’s sleep every night.

5. Sleep keeps you young and keeps the weight off.

A sleep-debt study of 11 men found that getting four hours of sleep for just six nights impairs the ability to metabolize carbohydrates and messes up endocrine function. The researchers said that these findings were not much different than what you see in general aging, however what it indicates is that not getting enough sleep speeds up the problems you typically see with age.

This impaired ability to metabolize carbs (if you haven’t guessed) doesn’t help your waistline. So, getting a good night’s sleep could definitely help you keep the weight off, or lose it, if that’s your goal.

While one late night probably isn’t too big of a deal, continually staying up too late, or not maintaining a regular bedtime schedule can wreak havoc on your body, leading to everything from anxiety, depression, irritability, impaired concentration to weight gain, and even increased risk of cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Given the trade-off I think sticking to a regular sleep schedule of seven or more hours a night is probably the better choice, don’t you?

References: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8621064 http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/inquiring-minds-matt-walker

I don’t get enough sleep.

It’s a simple statement but one that I know is true for not only me but for millions of others. The problem is that sleep is about a lot more than just rest, and not getting enough sleep can cause a host of problems from fatigue, to memory issues, and even long term illness. But, sleep deprivation may cause even bigger issues.

There are four stage of sleep, with the third being the deep sleep that provides Delta waves to help the mind and body heal, and the fourth stage is REM sleep which allows our brain to organize information, improving learning and memory. Once you understand the purpose of Delta waves and REM sleep, it’s understandable that REM sleep occurs at the highest levels in babies because they are learning the most. But, even aging adults need these deep stages of sleep, especially the Delta waves that help the body heal.

The problem is that not getting these stages does more harm that just decreasing our ability to heal and remember. According to researcher Adam Spira, not getting enough sleep may even lead to Alzheimer’s disease. His study at John’s Hopkins showed a definite link between sleep deprivation and the amyloid plaques commonly associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Unfortunately, the study doesn’t tell us if the plaque causes the poor sleep or if the poor sleep causes the plaque.

Even without knowing the cause and effect relationship between the plaque and poor sleep, it seems pretty simple to connect the dots. We know that Delta waves help heal the body, and we know that REM sleep helps to improve memory and learning. Alzheimer’s is associated with memory issues, and physically can only be diagnosed after death when the brain is autopsied, revealing specific plaques and tangles.

Of course, it’s possible that the plaques and tangles already existed and they are the reason that a person with Alzheimer’s disease has poor sleep, and the poor sleep over time leads to memory issues. However, it does seem that as Alzheimer’s progresses so do the sleep issues. After all, it is the nighttime waking that often leads to these patients being institutionalized, because their care-givers cannot be awake 24/7 to keep an eye on them.

Whether sleep issues cause Alzheimer’s or Alzheimer’s causes the sleep disturbances, the decreased sleep certainly can’t help the symptoms of memory loss and disorientation associated with Alzheimer’s. These symptoms are common in sleep deprivation at any age, even in healthy individuals.

So, how is it possible that lack of sleep could lead to Alzheimer’s disease?

When you look at what sleep does for our bodies, it’s pretty clear. Not only does sleep help aid our body’s healing processes and encourage learning and memory, but sleep also helps clear our bodies of toxins that accumulate during the day – including amyloid proteins. Not sleeping means that the amyloid proteins don’t get cleared, and this build-up eventually leads to the plaques associated with Alzheimer’s, beginning the degenerative chain of events that eventually leads to neuronal death.

This build-up of amyloid proteins is seen years before other Alzheimer’s symptoms and may well be an early symptom of the disease. So is it possible that improving sleep early on may help prevent this plaque aggregation and therefore prevent Alzheimer’s?

The answer seems to be yes.

Studies have indicated that sleep deprivation leads to amyloid plaque deposits within just three weeks. This seems to create a cyclical issue where the plaques decrease sleep over time, which creates an increase in plaque deposits. The key seems to be in increasing quality sleep early on before it becomes an issue.

But, how do we do this?

The first key is in recognizing that there is an issue. I know that personally I’ve been guilty at times of ignoring my own sleep issues, thinking that I’m just stressed out and that it will eventually improve on its own. And I know that I’m not alone. The problem is that it usually doesn’t get better without making some changes.

A 2015 review by Sharma and colleagues suggested two potential focus areas – melatonin and serotonin.

Melatonin is metabolite synthesized in the pineal gland that not only aids in the controlling the circadian rhythm but also in clearing the body of toxins and improving immune function. Sleep deprivation also increases serotonin levels, which normally decrease during deep and REM sleep. This increase in serotonin may result in the decreased melatonin. Because Alzheimer’s patients have been shown to have decreased melatonin levels, medications that reduce serotonin levels may be helpful in improving sleep patterns (as may melatonin supplementation).

Unfortunately, the relationship between sleep and Alzheimer’s is still a bit of a “chicken-and-egg” problem. While adjusting melatonin and serotonin may help sleep (among other things) we don’t yet know if helping sleep will reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

References:

Sharma, V. K., Sharma, P., Deshmukh, R., & Singh, R. (2015). Age associated sleep loss: a trigger for Alzheimer’s disease. Klinik Psikofarmakoloji Bulteni, 25(1), 78-88. doi:10.5455/bcp.20140909070449

Spira, A. P., Gamaldo, A. A., An, Y., Wu, M. N., Simonsick, E. M., Bilgel, M., … & Resnick, S. M. (2013). Self-reported sleep and β-amyloid deposition in community-dwelling older adults. JAMA neurology, 70(12), 1537-1543.

I’ve had Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Body on my to-read list for a while. But it wasn’t until someone mentioned that he has a “surefire” method of getting by on just two hours of sleep a day that I finally picked it up and started reading. As someone who suffers from insomnia, if I could find a way to live on just two hours of sleep a day and not feel like a zombie, I’d be all over that.
When I first heard the idea, it triggered something in my brain, like maybe I’d heard his theory before, and the thought niggled that it had something to do with short naps throughout the day, but I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until I actually read the chapter “Becoming Uberman” that the wheels clicked and I remembered where I’d heard about this idea of polyphasic sleep. Before I tell you where I heard about it, let me explain what polyphasic sleep is.
The idea of polyphasic sleep is pretty much just as I thought. It’s all about spreading your sleep out. According to Ferriss we really only need rapid eye movement (REM) sleep; all those other stages are basically a waste of time. He says that since we only spend about two out of eight hours in REM sleep, we should just bypass the other stages altogether. To do this, Ferriss suggests tiring yourself out to the point that when you fall asleep you jump straight to REM.
Ferriss presents several options, all focused on taking 20-minute naps throughout the day. The differences in the options come down to how many naps you take. You can take just one nap during the day and cut 40 minutes off of your normal sleep time. The options range from there, allowing you to cut your total sleep time with each 20-minute nap that you take.
The extreme “uberman” option requires you to take a 20-minute nap every four hours, getting a total of just two hours of sleep in each 24-hour period. Sounds awesome, right?
This brings me back to where I heard about the “uberman” polyphasic sleep method. It was in the book The Game by Neil Strauss. Don’t judge me! I was just curious and it turned out the book was pretty good. In case you aren’t familiar with The Game, it’s a nonfiction book about picking up women. In the course of the book, Strauss and a couple of his buddies decide to try this “uberman” sleep method. In the end they find out that the catch isn’t quite worth it.
Yes, there’s a catch! There’s always a catch. So, what is the catch, you ask? Let me explain.
There are actually two catches. The first is that you have to follow a very strict schedule of taking a 20-minute nap every four hours. Any delay throws your whole schedule out of sync. The second is that it takes a good three weeks to get your body and brain used to this sleep pattern, and in the meantime you are a walking zombie.
Catch 1 is hard enough to overcome for the average person, but Catch 2 could be downright dangerous!
For me personally–and I’m guessing for those who already suffer from insomnia and fatigue–I don’t think I’d make it the full three weeks. I’m sure my husband wouldn’t survive three weeks of me without sleep.
This brings me to one very important question about this whole theory: Is it true that we only need REM sleep?
REM is the fifth out of the five stages of sleep. The third and fourth stages are called “deep sleep,” and this is when Delta waves occur. Delta waves are one of five types of brain waves. They are responsible for helping the body and mind heal.
Delta waves are pretty important and something we want to encourage, especially if our bodies are already suffering from any sort of acute or chronic illness. The fact that these waves decrease overall as we age would make it even more important that we not do anything to decrease them further, like eliminating stages 3 and 4 of sleep. REM sleep is definitely important as well, as it’s believed that during REM sleep our brain organizes information, aiding in memory and learning.
All in all I’d say that Stage 4 sleep is more important than REM for our bodies and our minds, but REM is certainly important too. I wouldn’t want to do anything that decreases either of these stages. I think I’ll stick to my typical nine or so hours of sleep a night and hope I’m hitting all the stages.
References: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm