Tell Your Brain to Sleep

“Don’t Sleep Well!” I hear this from people all over the world! My first response is “Stop telling your brain anything that you do not wish to be true.” When you say ‘I don’t sleep well,’ a representation of what they means goes into working memory, located directly behind your forehead. Your brain perceives that ‘if you put it into working memory it must be information to you,’ and the brain does everything it can to help you achieve that goal. In this case, not sleeping well. Therefore, knowing that sleep is independently linked with longevity and that your brain appears to be cleared of toxins during sleep, change what you tell your brain. It can only do what it thinks it can do and you tell it what it can do through your thoughts, self-talk, and directions to your brain. I perceive of my brain as a connected although separate entity so I talk to my brain using the pronoun you. Most nights I tell my brain: “Arlene, you are falling asleep quickly and easily and waking up at ____________ am.” And in most cases that’s exactly what happens.

Sleep and Brain Work

Results of the new study, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the NIH, suggests that during sleep the brain is cleared of damaging molecules associated with neurodegeneration. Sleep changes the cellular structure of the brain. It appears to be a completely different state,” said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., leader of the study. Not only is sleep important for storing memories, it may be also be the period when the brain cleanses itself of toxic molecules. It appears that during sleep a plumbing system called the glymphatic system opens, letting fluid flow rapidly through the brain. Glial cells help control the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a clear liquid surrounding the brain and spinal cord, through the glymphatic system by shrinking or swelling. Since this appears to happen only during sleep, it highlights the critical importance of sleep in clearing the brain of toxins.

Xie et al “Sleep initiated fluid flux drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain.” Science, October 18, 2013. DOI: 10.1126/science.1241224

Brain, Sleep, and Toxins, 2

Researchers measured how long the dye lasted in the brain when the mice were asleep versus awake. They found that the dye flowed rapidly through mice brains when the mice were unconscious, either asleep or anesthetized. In contrast, the dye barely flowed when the same mice were injected with labeled beta-amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Beta-amyloid disappeared faster in mice brains when the mice were asleep, suggesting sleep normally clears toxic molecules from the brain. “These results may have broad implications for multiple neurological disorders,” said Jim Koenig, Ph.D., a program director at NINDS. It also suggests a new role for sleep and may highlight the critical importance of sleep for prevention as well as healthy on-going brain care. “We need sleep. It cleans up the brain,” said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, and a leader of the study.

Brain, Sleep, and Toxins

Researchers say that toxic molecules involved in neurodegenerative disorders accumulate in the space between brain cells. In a new study funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the NIH, researchers tested how these toxins are cleared from the brain. Using mice, researchers showed for the first time that the space between brain cells may increase during sleep, allowing the brain to flush out toxins that build up during waking hours. To determine whether the glymphatic system controls this process, researchers initially injected dye into the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) of mice and watched it flow through their brains while simultaneously monitoring electrical brain activity. 

Brain and More Sleep, 2

Estimates are that the brain uses about 20-25 percent of the body’s total fuel consumption (even though the brain is about two percent of your total weight). What does it use this energy for, what does it do with it? According to Matthew Edlund, MD, in The Power of Rest, “most of the time and energy the brain uses is spent “talking to itself.” He references work by Neuroscientist Marcus Raichle, reported in an article in Science magazine (“The Brain’s Dark Energy”). He used the metaphor of dark energy because so much of what the brain does is unknown. In fact, Dr. Raichle estimates that between 60-80 percent of the brain’s total energy consumption is used communicating between individual neurons and their support cells. It would be fascinating to know exactly what they are saying to each other.

Brain and More Sleep

No doubt you’re familiar with the statistics that suggest 20 hours without sleep and your brain is likely functioning as a brain would that has reached the legal limit of alcohol intoxication. Studies also show that the sleep deprived brain often things it is “doing just fine, thank you very much,” when in fact is it not doing very well at all. Conclusions of research related to ‘accidents,’ vehicular as well as equipment, suggest that lack of sleep played a part in many of them. Each brain has an optimum sleep requirement. Mine is between 8-9 hours depending on how much challenging mental work my brain is doing, since it may take longer to recover from mental work as compared with physical work. What happens during sleep? More tomorrow.

Brain and Sleep

Generally I am very careful about giving my brain the sleep it needs. Recently I was meeting a deadline for some musical compositions and got only six hours of sleep one night instead of 9 (the amount my brain seems to need). The next day my brain was not firing efficiently on all cylinders. I misplaced my car keys, sent a computer file twice instead of two separate files, and included the same illustrations in two different chapters in my latest manuscript. It would be humorous if not so pathetic! In addition, I was scheduled to record musical interludes for insertion between chapters of one of my audio books. My executive producer—whose brain is wonderfully creative and one of my favorites on this planet—managed to get me through recording the last 8 selections—but it was like slogging through hot thick tar instead of swimming in Caribbean seas—fortunately he is a very patient man. I went to bed very early that night!