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Long Winter Nights' Sleep
Blessings within the dark! Blessings on all of our passages through every darkness.
Date: 11/23/2015 11:13:18 PM ( 9 y ) ... viewed 2912 times My subscription to the new posts on "The Soaked Bean"[1] just gifted me with the current musings of blogger Lauren Haddad-Olivet.
"...Our pre-agrarian and even some of our agrarian ancestors would have had nearly fourteen hours of sleep during Winter’s long nights. Somewhere towards the middle, they would have entered a state quite different than the sleep we know. Due to the release of the hormone prolactin, they entered a state of ... 'quiescent wakefulness,'[2] during which brain-wave readings were shown to be similar to those observed during transcendental meditation. Wiley[3] writes, 'It was in this period of time, which we no longer have access to, that we solved problems, transcended stress and, most likely, talked to the gods.'"
Lauren continues:
"Divine communication aside, Wiley’s hypothesis that the body’s–specifically our endocrine system–responses are cyclical just feels right. I’ve always been drawn to the Hermetic maxim, 'As above, so below', so it serves to reason that our body’s needs would change w/ the seasons. And while fourteen hour nights are just ever so slightly out-of-reach for most of us (just slightly), a full nine-hour night–or what’s needed to have our hormones functioning w/ ease and grace – is certainly attainable."
Reading and contemplating all of this evokes my ideal imagining for a lifestyle wherein the "fourteen hour nights" of sleep would be reachable. I actually have already thought on the inclusion of more sacred environments for mothers and their newborns where (among other factors) artificial time and light dominance are excluded so that it would especially allow for a depth of bonding between mother and child that apparently is unknown in modern societies. And now I can see the sacredness extended through the "village"[4]
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March 27, 2019 - More Quality Sleep! -
Are We Sleepless in America? -
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society both recommend that adults aged 18–60 years get at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Yet in spite of the importance of sleep, we are all too often “Sleepless in America”—the title of a documentary produced by National Geographic in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and the Public Goods project, in 2014. The scientists in the documentary note that sleep problems take a great toll on all ages, including young Americans. Thirty-three percent of Americans are sleep deprived, according to the CDC.
According to a recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation, forty-five percent of Americans say that poor or insufficient sleep affected their daily activities at least once in the past seven days, and sixty-seven percent of those with less than good sleep quality also report “poor” or “only fair” health. A surprising 24 percent of women say they have woken up feeling well-rested zero of the past seven days. More than half of Americans surveyed had taken a nap within the past week, suggesting that many of us need more sleep than we are getting at night.
The National Center on Sleep Disorders Research estimates that as many as 70 million Americans may suffer from interrupted or fragmented sleep, from conditions such as insomnia, frequent nighttime awakenings, sleep apnea, or restless legs syndrome.
When we are sleep deprived, we are often also dream deprived. Dreaming occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, and many of the health concerns attributed to sleep deprivation are thought to result in REM sleep deprivation. REM sleep occurs several times nightly, and is thought to help us consolidate memories, and to benefit mood.
The Many Ways Poor Sleep Harms Our Health
Studies show that sleep deprivation, even for a night or two, increases many pro-inflammatory signaling molecules in the body, which can adversely impact both immune and nervous system function. This can persist beyond the actual days of lost sleep, despite normal recovery sleep in subsequent nights. That means that, despite seeming recovery when you catch up on your sleep, residual performance impairment remains, and if challenged again with a bad night’s sleep, impairment sets in even more quickly.
Poor sleep is correlated with inflammatory bowel diseases. Poor sleep also affects the hormones that regulate your appetite—and when sleep deprived the levels of the hormone that makes you feel hungry go up, while the levels that help you feel full go down. Thus you may eat more when your sleep cycle has been disturbed. Sleep also impacts the way your body reacts to insulin, the hormone that controls your blood glucose (sugar) level. Sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which may increase your risk for diabetes.
The Many Ways That Good Sleep Helps Our Health
Deep sleep is good for us: it stimulates the body to release growth hormone. In adults the pulse of growth hormone secretion occurs just after the onset of sleep, as slow wave sleep (stages 3 and 4) occurs. The normal nocturnal growth hormone surge disappears with sleep deprivation. Growth hormone has many powerful impacts on the body, including stimulating protein metabolism and synthesis, enhancing the utilization of fat, stimulating the breakdown of triglycerides, and helping to maintain blood glucose levels in a normal range.
Your immune system relies on sleep to stay healthy. In fact, sleep may be the best prevention around for colds and flu. And while you are asleep, your brain detoxifies itself up to ten times more quickly than when you are awake.
A Good Night’s Sleep Detoxifies Your Brain
You may have heard of the lymphatic system, but did you know you have a “glymphatic” system as well? Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) discovered that part of sleep’s restorative power is the flushing out and clearance of the wastes that accumulate during wakefulness. Dubbed the glymphatic system—the lymph system of the brain—it is regulated by brain cells called glial cells. The glymphatic system drains toxins or waste products that could contribute to neurological disorders and to Alzheimer’s disease.
This is a healthy “brain drain” and is facilitated through the circulation of cerebral spinal fluid. The movement of cerebral spinal fluid is known as the third circulation in our bodies—the first being cardiovascular, and the second lymphatic. The third circulation has been referred to as the body’s “liquid light”, one that not only flushes out toxins, but flushes in nutrients to neuronal and glial cells. It transports hormones, neurotransmitters, and neuropeptides throughout the central nervous system and brain. And it is all dependent on a good night’s sleep.
Healthy sleep has been shown to improve problem solving ability and enhance memory. It improves athletic performance. A study on eleven basketball players found that periods of longer sleep enhanced speed, accuracy, reaction times and mood.
Healthy sleep isn’t just about hours spent sleeping. It’s also about sleeping “well”—without frequent awakenings, without pain, and without the long-term assistance of medications with side effects.
How to Become A Good Sleeper
Sleep hygiene is a way of improving the quality and length of sleeping time. Recommendations include: avoiding caffeine, especially in the evenings; avoiding nicotine, another stimulant; cutting down on alcohol, which may help you fall asleep but will cause a rebound awakening in the middle of the night; exercising regularly; going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time in the morning; eliminating noise and distraction from the room you sleep in.
It’s well known that exposure to light at night—whether indoor lighting, city lights at night, or the blue light of the many electronic screens in our lives, is a proven impediment to quality sleep. In fact, research suggests that both the quality and “architecture” of sleep (how well we go through the stages of sleep) is associated with light exposure. Both the timing and intensity of the exposure matter, and they modulate “sleep pressure”, or the feeling that we need to sleep, as well as how well and long we sleep. Limiting light at night. Thus, minimizing light exposure in the evenings, turning down the brightness of screens or adding blue light filters can help support a good night’s sleep. Himalayan salt lamps (large pieces of pure Himalayan Salt with a small bulb inside) have a soothing orangey-red glow that can be relaxing. Essential oil diffusers offer aromatherapy and light therapy. Many use LED lighting in different soothing colors, and they can aid relaxation by aerosolizing soothing essential oils such as lavender and chamomile.
Mindfulness meditation is well-known to relax the body and the restless “monkey mind.” One excellent source for exercises and the philosophical insights behind mindfulness is the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. For three decades he has been offering teachings, as well as CDS and online programs to aid in stress-reduction, relaxation, and peace. “The most important thing,” he writes on his website, “is that each of us meet ourselves in the deepest of ways. These mindfulness practices are a direct path to that intimate, healing, and on-going encounter.”[7] (Article continues and includes footnotes for the above.)
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December 23, 2018 -
New Comment Offered at "The Soaked Bean" -
Good to hear from you once again dear Lauren! Especially good to hear of your recovery!
Amen to your closing "prayer".
I appreciate the "Mystery", your acknowledgement of it and realizing the limitations of naming things, especially the things often referred to as "disease".
We might agree that people often suffer not only their symptoms but from their diagnosis. Diagnostic shock can be just as impactful on the individual's psyche (and subsequently registered in the brain specifically locating where the brain controls an organ and/or system corresponding to the nature of the shock - see German New Medicine) as any other shock conflict. "Disease" can appear to be a mystery as virtually no one is raised within a total consensus-based perspective of the innate intelligence of the body that allows people to see the interconnection between psyche and health. Instead people have been essentially "terrorized" with a fear of disease as well as from of an overwhelming number of "diseases" and/or fear of "catching" one of the top two or three diseases that often induce a "death freight" when they are pronounced in a diagnosis.
In light of the medical conditioning injected into our society and especially the iatrogenesis[5] I congratulate you in persevering in your way!
Many blessings on sharing your "story"![6]
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Notes:
[1] http://thesoakedbean.com/
[2] Term used by Jessica Prentice in "Full Moon Feast - Food and the Hunger for Connection".
[3] Anthropologist T.S. Wiley in her book "Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival".
[4] The Cheeta Eco-Village: http://www.curezone.info/blogs/f.asp?f=3569
[5] https://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=1940961
[6] http://thesoakedbean.com/2018/12/23/mysterious-illness-magical-thinking/
[7] https://www.quicksilverscientific.com/blog/is-sleep-the-forgotten-part-of-your-perfect-health-routine/?
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Keywords:
sleep, Winter nights, prolactin, transcendental meditation, transcend stress, talk to the gods, Divine communication, hormones functioning, artificial time, artificial light, mother and child bonding, mystery
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