What’s Your Sleep Number?

Yesterday morning I was up at 3.15am to catch a flight, this morning it was 4.00am.  Tomorrow I have a 6.00am flight and on Friday I can look forward to another at 5.40am. Each of these early morning departures has, or will be, preceded by a late evening meeting.  All of which led me to thinking about sleep, or lack thereof.

A sleepless night can make us cranky and moody. So much so that sleep deprivation is sometimes used as a form of torture. So I was pleasantly surprised by new research that shows it can also bring on temporary euphoria.

Scientists at UC Berkeley and Harvard Medical School studied the brains of healthy young adults and found that their pleasure circuitry got a big boost after a missed night’s sleep. However that same neural pathway that stimulates feelings of euphoria, reward and motivation after a sleepless night may also lead to risky behavior.

“When functioning correctly, the brain finds the sweet spot on the mood spectrum. But the sleep-deprived brain will swing to both extremes, neither of which is optimal for making wise decisions,” said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.

The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, underscore the need for people in high-stakes professions and circumstances not to shortchange themselves on sleep.

Medical professionals, airline pilots and new parents take note.  “Based on this evidence, I’d be concerned by an emergency room doctor who’s been up for 20 hours straight making rational decisions about my health” added Walker.

So how much sleep do we need?

Most adults function best with 7 to 9 hours of sleep, although only about two-thirds of Americans regularly get it. Children fare better with 8 to 12 hours, while elderly people may need only 6 to 7.

One-third of Americans are sleep-deprived, regularly getting less than 7 hours a night, which puts them at higher risk of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and other health problems.

And then there are “short sleepers”.  It’s estimated that about 1% to 3% of the population, function well on less than 6 hours of sleep. Such people are both night owls and early birds, and tend to be unusually energetic and outgoing.  Not only are their circadian rhythms different from most people, so are their moods and their metabolism. They also seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks.

Who are these people?  Some short sleepers say their sleep patterns go back to childhood and some see the same patterns starting in their own kids, such as giving up naps by age 2. “As adults, they gravitate to different fields, but whatever they do, they do full bore,” says Christopher Jones, a University of Utah neurologist and sleep scientist

“Typically, at the end of a long, structured phone interview, they will admit that they’ve been texting and surfing the Internet and doing the crossword puzzle at the same time, all on less than six hours of sleep,” says Dr. Jones. “There is some sort of psychological and physiological energy to them that we don’t understand.”

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Leonardo da Vinci and Margaret Thatcher were too busy to sleep much, according to historical accounts. Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison came close but they were also fond of taking naps, which may disqualify them as true short sleepers.

Nowadays, some short sleepers gravitate to fields like blogging, and social media, where their sleep habits come in handy.

We can’t argue with that.  As many Word on Health readers have noted, ours is the first mail to hit their in-box every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Have any sleep stories to share?  We’d love to hear from you.

Happy Birthday Mr. President – Get well soon!

As many American’s celebrate Presidents’ Day,  SRxA’s Word on Health has been musing about the health of America’s founding father.  Although George Washington was physically strong, he was not the indominatable human force that popular history paints. He was often sick, particularly with infections. These were serious infections, many of them life-threatening.

Our research reveals that over the course of his lifetime, Washington suffered from diphtheria, malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, dysentery, quinsy, pneumonia and epiglottitis.  In later life, he had dental problems, progressive deafness, short-sightedness and infertility.

From the age of 17 to almost the end of his life, Washington had recurrent attacks of malaria. Malaria was then common in Virginia. Interestingly, an effective treatment for malaria had been discovered in the previous century. But, for some reason, Washington did not receive the treatment until 1784, when he was in his 50s.

At age 19 Washington spent time on Barbados. Around this time George developed a severe case of smallpox, which ultimately left his skin scarred for life. Shortly after returning from Barbados, Washington developed tuberculosis.

Washington had a tendency to become depressed when ill. He was haunted by premonitions of death, perhaps because his father and half-brother both died prematurely. Thomas Jefferson wrote that Washington was, in all aspects of his life, “inclined to gloomy apprehensions.”

In 1759 Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis. He was 26, she was a 28 year old widow who had borne four children during her previous marriage. Martha never became pregnant during her 40-year marriage to Washington. Given her previous fertility, it could well be concluded that the difficulty was not with her but with her husband.

Washington’s height, sterility, large hands, pockmarks, plus certain personality features and even his well-documented dental problems have led to the suggestion he had XYY syndrome.

By middle age Washington had no teeth left. Washington’s clumsy, ill-fitting dentures distorted his lips. This undoubtedly contributed to his dour expression.

No one is quite sure what killed Washington. He was in fine health at age 67 when he developed hoarseness and a sore throat. There was little alarm until he awoke in the middle of the night with difficulty breathing, almost unable to talk. A doctor was summoned, but Washington did not wait, ordering an employee to bleed him. The doctor arrived and, according to the principles of the day, bled him again. Eventually, Washington requested no further bleeding be performed, but he was bled again anyway. The bleedings inflicted by Washington’s doctors hastened his end. Some 80 ounces of blood (about 35% of his total blood volume) were removed in 12 hours.

One of the three doctors attending him objected to continued bleeding, arguing instead for tracheotomy which would have been  life-saving in epiglottitis. However, back then this treatment was considered experimental and dangerous.

Nevertheless, a  fourth physician, arrived at Mount Vernon the day after Washington died. The doctor hoped that Washington was in a suspended state, from which he could be aroused and then treated with tracheotomy.  It was proposed that the body be thawed gradually, first in cool water and then with warm blankets and rubbing of the skin, with the subsequent performance of a tracheotomy, artificial respiration at the tracheotomy site, and transfusion of lamb’s blood.

Sadly, we will never know if this would have worked as Martha Washington vetoed the plan!