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To Sleep... Perchance to Dream...

Dr. Pari Basharat  Featured
February 18 2016 11:46 AM ET via RheumReports RheumReports

Chances are, you may be reading this article at the end of a long day spent working, reading, and attending to various other life commitments. You may be snuggled in bed, reading this on a smart phone or tablet, the glow of the screen the only illumination in the room. Perhaps you have just enjoyed a cup of hot tea. Maybe you have set your alarm for tomorrow, ready to rise after four or five hours of sleep, only after the snooze button has been pushed a couple of times. Are you ready to read on about being sleep deprived? Are you ready to read how, if you have been doing any of the above, you have been hijacking your precious sleep and missing out on some serious rejuvenation, brain and cellular repair? Or worse, how you have been compromising your physical health and perhaps shortening your life?!

Don’t worry, you are not alone and Dr. James Maas wants you to know that. He delivered a riveting State of the Art Lecture today at the CRA entitled "Everything You Must Know About Sleep But are Too Tired to Ask!" Needless to say, the whole audience was wide awake to listen to his interesting and powerful message. Dr. Maas, PhD, is an American social psychologist,  and professor at Cornell University. He is best known for his work in the field of sleep research, coined the term "power nap" and wrote the best-selling book, "Power Sleep."

According to Dr. Maas, most people are moderately to severely sleep deprived. This deprivation can affect job performance, inter-personal relationships, and result in negative effects on mood, alertness, athletic ability, as well as reduced longevity. We see this often in our chronic disease patients. Dr. Maas's research has noted a link between rheumatoid arthritis and poor sleep, not just because of  joint pain and stiffness, but also because rheumatoid arthritis can be an independent cause of sleep apnea.

But it is not just our patients that suffer from poor sleep. Over 75% of adults experience sleep issues each week – including us! Seventy-one percent of adults don't meet the recommended 7.4-9.5 hours of sleep per night.

So why is sleep important? Turns out the sleeping brain is actually pretty active! It regulates the immune system, as well as endocrine functions essential to general health. In addition, sleep deprivation can also result in hypertension, type II diabetes, heart attacks and strokes, as well as obesity. In fact, getting one more hour of sleep per night can result in potential loss of one more pound of weight per week, can decrease the risk of artery calcification by 33% as well as result in a 17 mm drop in systolic blood pressure. Good for our patients – and for us!

It also turns out that 8 hours of continuous sleep is pretty important. We have all heard of REM sleep – but have you heard of sleep spindles? During hours 6-8 of sleep, these spindles correspond with a cascade of calcium into the motor cortex of the brain, which results in motor muscle memory.  So, for example, when we learn a new motor skill, be it a golf swing, how to play a new tune on the piano, or how to inject a joint, we need to sleep at least 8 hours after learning the skill so that it goes from short-term memory into motor muscle memory.  So, if we miss those last 2 hours of sleep, we could be missing out on major athletic and motor potential!

Some of the biggest culprits resulting in disordered sleep include poor choice of pillow (try the pillow test! Fold your pillow in half and if it doesn't immediately spring back to its original shape, it's a dud); use of electronics in the bedroom which emit blue spectrum light that blocks melatonin; caffeine after 2 pm; as well as using the bedroom as a work space rather than a place of rest. Sound familiar?

In addition, Dr. Maas had some neat gadgets that could be tried, including the Litebook (litebook.com). This is a device that employs Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology. When using the device every morning, the idea is that the bright light will mimic the sun, halting melatonin production and helping us feel awake and ready to start the day.

So the next time you feel guilty about sleeping, remember that quality sleep will improve the quality of your day-time hours, making them more productive overall.

So what do you think? Can you take the challenge and sleep at least 8 hours a night, avoiding taking work to bed with you? As I sign off and close my laptop, ready to catch some much delayed sleep and slightly jet-lagged, I wonder if I will follow the above advice myself! But today’s lecture certainly made me wonder how much more productive and happy my waking hours would be if I just caught a few more "ZZZ"s…

Sweet dreams!


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About the Author

Dr. Pari Basharat
Dr. Pari Basharat

Dr. Pari Basharat, BSc, MD is a Rheumatologist based in London, ON.

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