If you are having memory problems, difficulty concentrating, are stressed or have trouble losing belly fat, consider your sleep. Are you getting enough? Many of us think we can get by on less than 6 hours of sleep a night, but the research shows we may just be kidding ourselves.
Numerous studies are now showing less than 6 hours of sleep a night, for more than a week is strongly correlated with cognitive decline, poor judgment and memory problems.
Unfortunately, the resulting impairment in judgment may cause a person to believe that they are doing fine when in fact they are losing brain cells due to a lack of sleep.
A recent study in the journal SLEEP showed just one night of sleep deprivation is associated with signs of brain tissue loss, as indicated by higher blood concentrations of two molecules associated with brain damage.
In another study conducted by the University of Surrey researchers found that sleep deprivation can also have an impact on your genes — a week’s worth of not getting enough rest (fewer than six hours of sleep each night) was associated with changes to more than 700 genes, with far reaching implications.
Other studies have previously shown that a chronic lack of sleep can increase stress hormones like cortisol, boost cravings for high-calorie foods, increase belly fat, affect your skin, increase our risk for diabetes, reduce our decision making abilities and increase our risk for Alzheimer’s.
At the 2012 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis revealed a study which found that individuals who had disrupted sleep — waking up repeatedly during the night — were more likely to show Alzheimer’s disease-related signs than sound sleepers. Previous animal studies suggest that the connection is worth investigating, since mice bred to develop amyloid plaques tend to grow deposits earlier if they are sleep deprived. The study director Dr. Ju theorizes that deep sleep may slow the production of amyloid, leaving less for the brain to clear away during waking hours. That could explain why poor sleepers, who spend less time in deep sleep, tend to accumulate more of the nerve-damaging protein than those who sleep longer.
Last month I wrote about the various causes of cardio-vascular disease, strokes & dementia. As a follow up to that article I think it significant to note that according to a study reported in the December 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a direct association exists between sleep and plaque in the arteries around your heart. The results showed that if you are currently not getting enough sleep one more hour of sleep per night can reduce your risk of calcification or plaque build-up in your coronary arteries by 33 percent. This correlates with another study in 2012 on Adults who regularly slept fewer than six hours a night, which found that these individuals had four times the risk of having a stroke.
Caution: Are you taking a medication to help you sleep? Studies reported by John’s Hopkin’s university and others suggests popular sleep medications like Ambien, Lunesta and Benadryl can have serious side effects and may even impair memory.
What Can Helps? Consider the Following 6 Steps
1. Increase Serotonin. Melatonin is what our body uses to turn the lights out in our brain, but it is made in the brain from serotonin. Serotonin is the primary chemical messenger that calms us down. At night it is converted into melatonin which puts us to sleep. Serotonin comes primarily from the protein tryptophan. Good sources are whole milk, salmon, chicken breast, Tofu, freshly ground flax seed, pumpkin seeds, brown rice, and nuts.
The trick, however, is to separate this from the other proteins in food. In the late 80’s Dr. Judith Wurtman from MIT found if these foods were eaten earlier in the day and the evening meal consisted primarily of carbohydrates like pasta, or breakfast cereal, the body would convert more of the tryptophan from earlier meals into serotonin to calm us down at night and melatonin to enable us to sleep.
2. Exercise. 30 minutes or more of exercise during the day, like simply going for a long brisk walk, reduces stress hormones, relaxes muscles and helps the body produce more serotonin.
3. Take a Nap. If you think you may not be getting enough sleep at night, a nap during the day can be a welcome relief for you brain, which can help reduce stress and sharpen your memory.
4. Light Up Your Life. Sunlight, or bright light therapy early in the day helps the pineal gland get rid of toxins, and convert serotonin at night into melatonin to help us sleep. On the other end it’s important to make sure there are no lights visible to your eyes when you go to bed. The darker the room the better our production of melatonin.
5. Consume More Magnesium. Magnesium rather than calcium helps relax the muscles and prevents cramps at night and promotes longer, deeper sleep. Again pumpkin seeds, spinach, chard, cashews, most beans and seeds are high in magnesium.
6. Take a Natural Sleep Supplement. Some food supplements and teas can be of great help. Those for sleep include L-tryptophan (taken before bed on a relatively empty stomach with a little fruit juice), a vitamin B-complex with a meal during the day, will also help the body better convert tryptophan to serotonin.
If stress or worry is your problem or anxiety at night or L-theanine may be the answer. This helps to increase GABA levels, which is what our body uses to calm anxiety.
Magnesium before bed (400 mg is typically used in studies) will help to relax nerves and muscles. This is especially helpful if a person has cramps a night. Magnesium L-Threonate is perhaps the best to calm the mind and improve memory as well.
Bioactive Milk Peptides (Lactium®) are a cutting-edge nutrient complex consisting of patented bioactive peptides found naturally in milk. Used widely in Europe to promote sustained and restful sleep, published studies reveal that these milk peptides also promote relaxation, help with stress, and support daytime cognition. A group of 63 women reporting a variety of sleep-related difficulties found more than a 65% improvement in their symptoms with just 150 mg per day of these bioactive peptides. If a warm glass of milk at night does not do the trick, you may want to try these with ashwagandha, which also reduces anxiety. (This product comes both with melatonin or without.)
Melatonin pills help some but not others. Personally I think it’s better to boost this by enhancing serotonin, but it’s also helpful in protecting the brain. These should not be used by those under 18 years of age.
Herbs like valerian, Lemon balm, and hops; are also helpful for many.
7. Teas like Chamomile, or “Sleepy Time” tea may also be helpful.
All of these ideas are worth a try, as the health of your brain and body may lie in the balance. If you have questions about anything in this article you can email me at davidrjl@aol.com
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Prevention Strategies 
