Posts tagged sleep deprivation
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
"Blue" Light Could Help Teenagers Combat Stress
Adolescents can be chronically sleep deprived because of their inability to fall asleep early in combination with fixed wakeup times on school days. According to the CDC, almost 70 percent of school children get insufficient sleep—less than 8 hours on school nights. This type of restricted sleep schedule has been linked with depression, behavior problems, poor performance at school, drug use, and automobile accidents. A new study from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute shows that exposure to morning short-wavelength “blue” light has the potential to help sleep-deprived adolescents prepare for the challenges of the day and deal with stress, more so than dim light.
The study was a collaboration between Associate Professor and Director of the LRC Light and Health Program Mariana Figueiro and LRC Director and Professor Mark S. Rea. Results of the study titled “Short-Wavelength Light Enhances Cortisol Awakening Response in Sleep-Restricted Adolescents,” were recently published in the open access International Journal of Endocrinology. The full text is available at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ije/2012/301935/.
Findings reveal brain mechanisms at work during sleep
One in five American adults show signs of chronic sleep deprivation, making the condition a widespread public health problem. Sleeplessness is related to health issues such as obesity, cardiovascular problems, and memory problems.
Today’s findings show that:
• Sleepiness disrupts the coordinated activity of an important network of brain regions; the impaired function of this network is also implicated in Alzheimer’s disease (Andrew Ward, abstract 909.05).
• Sleeplessness plays havoc with communication between the hippocampus, which is vital for memory, and the brain’s “default mode network;” the changes may weaken event recollection (Hengyi Rao, PhD, abstract 626.08).
• In a mouse model, fearful memories can be intentionally weakened during sleep, indicating new possibilities for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (Asya Rolls, abstract 807.06).
• Loss of less than half a night’s sleep can impair memory and alter the normal behavior of brain cells (Ted Abel, PhD, abstract 807.13).Other recent findings discussed show:
• How sleep enables the remodeling of memories — including the weakening of irrelevant memories — and the coherent integration of old and new information (Gina Poe, PhD).
• The common logic behind seemingly contradictory theories of how sleep remodels synapses, aiding cognition and memory consolidation (Giulio Tononi, MD, PhD).
New study shows that even your fat cells need sleep
In a study that challenges the long-held notion that the primary function of sleep is to give rest to the brain, researchers have found that not getting enough shut-eye has a harmful impact on fat cells, reducing by 30 percent their ability to respond to insulin, a hormone that regulates energy.
Sleep deprivation has long been associated with impaired brain function, causing decreased alertness and reduced cognitive ability. The latest finding—published by University of Chicago Medicine researchers in the Oct. 16 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine—is the first description of a molecular mechanism directly connecting sleep loss to the disruption of energy regulation in humans, a process that can lead over time to weight gain, diabetes and other health problems. The study suggests that sleep’s role in energy metabolism is at least as important as it is in brain function.
"We found that fat cells need sleep to function properly," said study author Matthew Brady, PhD, associate professor of medicine and vice-chair of the Committee on Molecular Metabolism and Nutrition at the University of Chicago.
Sleep loss links to illness studied
Insomniacs know the pattern all too well. You toss and turn at night, kept awake by the rave down the street, stress from work, the snores of a significant other.
After a stretch of restless evenings, you wake up with a sore throat or a fever. You’re no longer just tired - you’re also sick.
Physicians know this pattern, too. Constant lack of sleep has long been linked with a laundry list of unpleasant conditions: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, weight gain, infectious illnesses and even death.
While it’s common knowledge that a full night of rest helps ward off ailments, what largely remains a mystery is exactly how sleep loss triggers the biological mechanisms that in turn bring about illness - like the common cold.
A 2009 study of 153 men and women, for example, showed that those who slept fewer than seven hours on average per night were about three times more likely to develop a cold than those with at least eight hours of sleep daily.
Even a small difference in sleep quality made a big difference in health, the Carnegie Mellon University study showed. Participants who actually slept less than 92 percent of the time between the time they laid down to sleep and when they woke up were 5.5 times more likely to develop a cold than those who stayed asleep 98 percent or more of the time, according to the researchers.
Rethinking Sleep
SOMETIME in the dark stretch of the night it happens. Perhaps it’s the chime of an incoming text message. Or your screen lights up to alert you to a new e-mail. Or you find yourself staring at the ceiling, replaying the day in your head. Next thing you know, you’re out of bed and engaged with the world, once again ignoring the often quoted fact that eight straight hours of sleep is essential.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Thanks in part to technology and its constant pinging and chiming, roughly 41 million people in the United States — nearly a third of all working adults — get six hours or fewer of sleep a night, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And sleep deprivation is an affliction that crosses economic lines. About 42 percent of workers in the mining industry are sleep-deprived, while about 27 percent of financial or insurance industry workers share the same complaint.
Can’t sleep? You could have inherited the insomnia gene
21 August 2012 by Lois Rogers
Thousands of otherwise healthy people put up with a level of sleep deprivation that would drive the rest of us insane. But they are not the usual candidates for insomnia, such as shift workers or those with severe mental illness. Instead, they belong to a newly identified group of people born without the ‘comfort’ genes needed for easy sleep.
This means they are immune to the feeling of warmth and relaxation which sends an average person off to sleep within 15 minutes. Their genes are designed instead to maintain a state of mental alertness. This makes normal, prolonged sleep impossible so they sleep fitfully, in only short bursts. Even then, their lack of ‘comfort’ genes may mean they struggle to get comfortable, fussing about the bedding or finding their sleeping position.
There are other so-called insomnia genes — some cause repeated periods of wakefulness in the small hours of the night or at the slightest disturbance, or drive an affected person to leap out of bed raring to start the day at 4am, but leave them exhausted by 4pm. Until recently, insomnia was considered a purely psychological complaint triggered by stress, grief, or sleep disruption as a result of shift work or jet lag.
But doctors are now unravelling the genetic explanation of why at least one-third of us have intermittent or constant sleep problems. Even so, it’s already thought there could be six or more different types of insomnia linked to genes. This means it will be possible to develop drugs to block the effect of the chemical signals they produce.
(Source: Daily Mail)
Levels of sleep problems in the developing world are approaching those seen in developed nations, linked to an increase in problems like depression and anxiety.
According to the first ever pan-African and Asian analysis of sleep problems, led by Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick, an estimated 150 million adults are suffering from sleep-related problems across the developing world.
The results are published in a study in the journal Sleep.
Source: The University of Warwick
Sleep deprivation can influence professional behavior
August 8, 2012 By Lia Samson
(Phys.org) — In a recent paper, Aleksander Ellis of the University of Arizona Eller College of Management and a colleague demonstrate that lack of sleep can cause deviant behavior at work.
Early 2011 saw a spate of reports in the media about air traffic controllers sleeping on the job as a result of sleep deprivation. The potential harm from this behavior is obvious, but what about the average office job? Can sleep deprivation cause counterproductive, or even unethical, behavior in organizations?
“Over the past decade, Americans have been getting less and less sleep, and estimates are that this trend will continue,” said Professor of Management and Organizations Aleksander Ellis, the Charles and Candice Nelson Fellow. “In fact, in certain industries, lack of sleep is worn as a badge of honor.”
In a recent paper published in the Academy of Management Journal, Ellis and co-author Michael Christian of Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill demonstrate that lack of sleep can cause deviant behavior.
In one part of the study, for instance, the researchers asked a group of subjects to respond to an email that contained colloquial language and misspellings. One of the sleep-deprived subjects responded with an unprofessional, personal attack. This is just one example Ellis and Christian cite to demonstrate how sleep deprivation reduces self-control and increases hostility.
Ellis and Christian are currently working on a parallel project that examines how sleep deprivation affects the tendency of individuals to behave unethically by conforming to the behavior of unethical authority figures.
Source: PHYS.ORG