More on Sleep

Seems like the topic of sleep is on everyone's minds lately. Here's another interesting article on that subject that reports not enough sleep for kids can severly affect their cognitive abilities therefore hurting their performance in school. Here are snippets from the article that I found interesting.

A few scientists theorize that sleep problems during formative years can cause permanent changes in a child’s brain structure: damage that one can’t sleep off like a hangover. It’s even possible that many of the hallmark characteristics of being a tweener and teen—moodiness, depression, and even binge eating—are actually symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.

Another interesting revelation from the sleep studies performed showed that with less sleep people tend to remember the negative rather than the positive.

Perhaps most fascinating, the emotional context of a memory affects where it gets processed. Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories get processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine.

If everyone were to get enough sleep we would all be happier and more pleasant people. Sleep also affects our metabolism. Studies show that sleep and obesity are strongly linked. 

Sleep loss increases the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger, and decreases its metabolic opposite, leptin, which suppresses appetite. Sleep loss also elevates the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is lipogenic, meaning it stimulates your body to make fat. Human growth hormone is also disrupted. Normally secreted as a big pulse at the beginning of sleep, growth hormone is essential for the breakdown of fat.

The effects of sleep loss are cumulative as proven by the following experiment. 

But perhaps we are blind to the toll it is taking on us. The University of Pennsylvania’s David Dinges did an experiment shortening adults’ sleep to six hours a night. After two weeks, they reported they were doing okay. Yet on a battery of tests, they proved to be just as impaired as someone who has stayed awake for 24 hours straight.

The National Sleep Foundation has a fun and engaging learning module on the cycles of sleep that you can check out here.