Alex Herder’s Reviews > Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams > Status Update
Alex Herder
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Sleep has an interesting relationship with Alzheimer’s (and maybe other dementia) in that poor sleep is both a causal factor and a symptom. When we sleep, the Glymphatic system purges our brains of toxins through CSF. One of those toxins is amyloid proteins, which build up in brains and prevent quality NREM sleep. With less quality sleep, more amyloids build up. This then manifests as poor memory, with less NREM.
— Dec 22, 2019 04:49PM
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Alex Herder
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REM sleep dreaming seems to offer a kind of self-therapy by integrating experiences into people’s narratives, and blunting traumatic triggers and emotions. For those who aren’t able to do this for whatever reason, I wonder if those people should try other integration techniques, like those offered by LSD, psylocibin, or other entheogens?
— Dec 24, 2019 07:52AM
Alex Herder
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With all of this evidence about I’ll health from not sleeping a full nights sleep, I wonder if we have an obligation to restructure society in some way. If working night shifts leads to a 40% increase in cancer diagnosis, should we discourage businesses from being open at night?
— Dec 24, 2019 07:16AM
Alex Herder
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Reproductive fitness: short sleeping correlates with smaller testicles, lower testosterone, less ovulation hormone, and decreased libido.
— Dec 24, 2019 07:11AM
Alex Herder
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Immune reponse: experiments confirm that sleep deprivation (getting less than 7 or 8 hours) makes it more likely we contract colds and less likely that our bodies will respond to vaccines by producing the appropriate antibodies.
— Dec 24, 2019 07:10AM
Alex Herder
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Obesity and diabetes is also more likely with short sleeping. Our hunger hormones are thrown into imbalance with less sleep, presumably because our body is internalizing a threat signal from the lack of sleep, and so we binge on more energy dense foods. We also are less able to process sugars to the point that doctors looking at test results of short sleepers are likely to describe them as prediabetic.
— Dec 24, 2019 07:07AM
Alex Herder
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Short sleeping (sleeping less than 8 hours) is strongly correlated with heart disease, hypertension, and more. For these, short sleeping means less growth hormone to repair vessel walls, higher cortisol to stress them, and a marked increase in death. Daylight savings time transitions are associated with more and fewer heart attacks and traffic accidents.
— Dec 24, 2019 07:04AM
Alex Herder
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Circadian rhythms change over the course of life. We ought to structure work, school, and our general expectations accordingly. Are there any schools or workplaces who do a good job at this?
— Dec 22, 2019 11:36AM
Alex Herder
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REM sleep allows our brains to rehearse life and think through problems. Might be part of why we are such good social animals and may be part of our hominid transition from tree sleeping to ground sleeping. During REM sleep, our bodies are paralyzed.
— Dec 22, 2019 11:27AM
Alex Herder
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Listening notes:
Sleep is primarily driven by the adenosine and circadian cycles, which are independent. Circadian is influenced by daylight exposure and melatonin, and varies over ones lifetime. Adenosine is effectively a “time since I woke up” timer and can be temporarily blocked by caffeine.
Sleep contain REM and NREM sleep, which each have their own roles. Both are essential. NREM is what makes memories.
— Dec 22, 2019 11:25AM
Sleep is primarily driven by the adenosine and circadian cycles, which are independent. Circadian is influenced by daylight exposure and melatonin, and varies over ones lifetime. Adenosine is effectively a “time since I woke up” timer and can be temporarily blocked by caffeine.
Sleep contain REM and NREM sleep, which each have their own roles. Both are essential. NREM is what makes memories.
