SubscribeTwo Videos On Sleep From “60 Minutes”
Learning by osmosis? Photo courtesy of Smart Kit
I found these two videos from a link on Coach Rut’s blog: The Science of Sleep, Part 1 (part 2 is linked in the right-hand menu). Total run-time is about 25 minutes. If you’re going to watch them, you should probably get on it pretty quickly as they might disappear from the site once there is another episode of 60 minutes.
Part 1 discusses why we sleep. What happens inside the body while we sleep? How does sleep help in improving memory? How does sleep affect performance and mental function? Here’s a fun fact: Driving drowsy is the riskiest driving behavior there is.
Part 2 discusses how sleep affects hunger and metabolism and how quality of sleep is as important as quantity. Two statements jumped out at me. First, in 1960, a survey showed median sleep was 8 hours (1 million respondents). Today, it’s 6.7 hours. Second, studies on college students showed that 6 nights of 4 hours of sleep put them in a prediabetic state and made them hungrier.
The bottomline is still “Go to bed”.
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Filed in Sleep and Stress 8 Comments so far
Petr R. on 18 Mar 2008 at 12:42 pm #
What I still don’t understand is sleep deprivation of parents when new child is born.
with newborn she usually looks very exhausted at least for some time before baby get used to new regime of day/night.
Sleep is obviously important no doubt but when I see new mother (or father
Dave L on 18 Mar 2008 at 1:42 pm #
What does pre-diabetic mean here? Insulin resistance? How can they know for sure that this pre-diabetic state is caused by lack of sleep and not from, what I am sure, is the standard crap diet of a college student? Correlation is not causation.
Scott Kustes on 18 Mar 2008 at 1:47 pm #
Petr, I’m not sure what your question is. What don’t you understand about sleep deprivation in the case of a newborn?
Dave, I wondered the same thing. It could be insulin resistance because of the crappy food the lack of sleep is causing them to eat, though in the end, the result is the same. I imagine they measured their glucose tolerance before and after to determine that it degraded, though it’s not laid out in the videos.
Cheers
Scott
Petr R. on 18 Mar 2008 at 2:07 pm #
Scott,
well - why nature “punishes” parents with lack of sleep when new child is born.
All those consequences of not enough sleep would appear as mother is forced to wake up every couple hours to feed a baby or take care of him otherwise. It could last couple of weeks to couple of months and for sure it will take some toll on parents wouldn’t it ?
Scott Kustes on 18 Mar 2008 at 2:21 pm #
Petr, that’s a good question. I wonder if those living a more natural lifestyle “in the wild” have the same issues with their babies sleeping at night. That is, I wonder if waking up at all hours of the night is a function of being a baby or is a function of being a baby in our type of civilization.
Cheers
Scott
Mike OD - IF Life on 18 Mar 2008 at 2:53 pm #
I also think that a baby should naturally want to sleep all night…as I know parents who’s kids do…and then others who’s kids don’t. Would be interesting to see a study on it and see if it has anything to do with nutrition. Considering all the options and factors that go into what the breast milk of a mother could comprise of (Essential Fatty Acids, grains, proteins, etc) and what the baby is really getting.
I think short term sleep deprivation might be fine as the parents eventually are able to get back to normal sleeping patterns. Long term however are probably more destructive on our immune and ageing systems.
I remember also seeing a study about shorter children and their GH response at night being very low. Could this be a factor of staying up late too much?
Sleep is good.
Scott Kustes on 19 Mar 2008 at 9:35 pm #
It might also be less detrimental because, historically, we weren’t hurtling through space at 65mph in a two-ton bullet. While reaction time may have been slowed, as a group, a mother would be protected by others from the ills of the savanna, while the same sleep-deprived mother driving a car is on her own and if things go downhill, they go downhill very quickly.
I think Mike has a good point too, kinda of alluding to my point about sleepless nights for babies. If the mother and baby are eating better diets, perhaps there’s less issue with sleeplessness.
Cheers
Scott
Terry on 20 Mar 2008 at 1:56 am #
Now that you guys are wondering about diet and sleeping babies its got me thinking back to when my boys were babies. The oldest slept 8 hours a night from day one. He was three weeks post term and very well nourished. I ate very well while pregnant, although not low carb I didn’t limit fats. The younger was always hungrier and still has a faster metabolism. I seem to recall that he wanted to eat every four hours but I often took him to bed with me so I didn’t really have to wake up fully to feed him. I think that the duration a baby sleeps at night is based on their individual metabolisms, whether they are breast or bottle fed, the quality of what they are fed and separation issues. My impression is that mothers in less industrialized populations keep their babies close at all times so the children are more secure, are fed more often, cry less and have fewer behavior problems as they get older.