Where Will Your Next Dream Lead You?

Have you ever felt that you can control your dreams?  I recall instances in which I have felt that I could do just that: direct the trajectory of my dreams.  Weird.  Ursula Voss’s article on lucid dreaming begins by explaining the phenomenon of REM (rapid eye movement sleep) as it relates to the immediate present, therefore earning its classification as a primary state of consciousness.  After arousal, humans, and perhaps only us, enter a secondary state of consciousness characterized by higher-order cognitive functions like self-reflective awareness, abstract thinking, volition, and metacognition (Voss).  I will define lucid dreaming then as a mental state in which a transition from primary to secondary consciousness takes place, allowing the sleeper to realize that he/ she is in fact dreaming and perhaps to even control the direction of the given dream upon this realization.

Changes in EEG, EOG, and EMG activity noted in Voss’s study show REM sleep modification such that subjects appeared to enter a different state of consciousness that was not wakefulness but more “controlled” than REM sleep state.  Namely, changes in gamma band amplitude and frequency are both noted in EEG activity categorized as indicative of lucid dreaming.  Gamma bands are associated with high cognitive functioning (they range from 40 to 100 Hz).  A logical connection then is drawn between lucid dreaming and gamma bands.  Subjective lucid dreaming report measures in the study correlated well with noted changes in gamma (40-Hz band) activity as well – lowered gamma band activity to be precise.

Voss suggests that the study provides the first causal evidence of demonstrated altered consciousness awareness resulting from induced gamma band activity.  Lowered gamma-band activity appeared to be the necessary present condition to allow for a transition into secondary consciousness in dreaming, i.e. lucid dreaming.  What does this information mean for you, me, or our peers?

I say it means that lucid dreaming is real!  Again, I can attest to this statement as truth because I have experienced instances where I have woken up briefly because something interrupted my sleep, turned over, and gone back to sleep in the same dream.  I cannot explain the phenomenon as I do not have these dreams often…nor can I provide an adequate recent example.  However, on the rare occasion that I experience lucid dreaming, I am amazed each time at the beauty and complexity of my mind to navigate altered consciousness.  I am spurred into intellectual curiosity – and usually end up wanting to watch the movie Inception to explore my thoughts on dreaming and consciousness more…

Sleep More to Potentially Prevent Alzheimers

Alzheimer's Disease is one of the meanest diseases (if you can characterize a disease as such) in existence today.  Over 5 million Americans live with the reality of Alzheimer's every day...and this number is way too large for my liking, considering how far medicine has come especially in the last perhaps 30 years.  What is Alzheimer's Disease (AD)?

According to The Alzheimer's foundation, AD is:

"a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain's nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes."  Neurons destroyed in the hippocampus impairs memory function while death of neurons in the cerebral cortex causes language skill impairment and judgment decline.  Alzheimer's is characterized by the presence of beta-amyloid plaque (between cells) in the brain as well as neurofibrillary tangles (within cells).  It is the most common cause of dementia in adults ages 65 and older.

I believe that I have mentioned this fact before, but my grandmother has been diagnosed with dementia for several years now, although interestingly she have never been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  She has in fact been tested for AD (a couple of times) but she passed 'with flying colors' each time.  As much as I want to believe her clinicians, I cannot help but think that she has perhaps developed it, and is only in its early stages, as she uses her intelligence to fool her doctors.

According to Dr. Holtzman'z article about AD, sleep loss is correlated to amyloid plaque buildup: the hallmark of AD in a patient's brain.  Beta-amyloid actually builds up in the brain 10-20 years before memory/ cognition impairment presents in AD patients.  This plaque buildup in the brain decreases the presence of a-beta42 in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a finding associated with AD patients as many as 15 years or more prior to the presentation of cognitive symptoms.  Importantly, low CSF levels of a-beta42 were found to correlate with poor sleep quality, although not necessarily sleep quantity (TST).  This finding is very logical to me, as it is known that sleep quality decreases generally across the lifespan (less REM sleep, less SWS sleep, and shorter duration overall).  Therefore, maybe we all increase our risk for developing AD as we get older...but we can slow or maybe prevent its arrival by giving ourselves better sleep.

Improved sleep begins now, in college, as we transition into total independence and control of our schedule.  The article also mentioned that improved exercise helps rid the brain of plaque buildup -- another sensible finding because exercise helps one sleep better.  With better sleep comes improved diet too, because we are not craving things like fast food.

I would like to see more research and resources poured into the area of sleep as it relates to memory function and the development of AD, as it is relevant to my future and the rest of my generation.  For now, I can continue to improve my sleep habits.

This week I commented on Kiara Stewart and Jace Ryan's blogs.

Getting More Sleep Could Reduce your Risk for Breast Cancer

It is no secret that breast cancer is the most common cancer experienced by women around the world.  So much research and funding, like that of the Susan G. Komen foundation, is focused on allocating efforts toward a cure.  While this effort is mighty, necessary, and surely commendable, what if we could prevent breast cancer?  There would be no need to have a Race For The Cure, no need for painful mammograms, and no need to Think Pink in October.

The study by M. Kakizaki analyzed the association between sleep duration and breast cancer risk in a Japanese female population.  The multi-year study included almost 24,000 women who answered a one-time sleep duration questionnaire, indicating which of 4 TST (total sleep time) gr
oups they belonged to: 9+ hours/ day, 8 hours, 7 hours, and 6- hours/ day.  Results showed an inverse relationship between sleep duration and risk for breast cancer.  Baseline heart rate was shown to be higher in those who reported less sleep duration as well.  Therefore, those reporting an average of less than 6 hours of sleep per night showed both the highest heart rate and highest risk for breast cancer.

Conceding that study procedures included the sometimes-unreliable method of questionnaire reporting for data collection, and that confounding variables such as sleep onset latency (SOL) or sleep disorders were not controlled for, Kakizaki made a strong and alarming claim about sleep health: get enough nightly sleep if you do not want to increase your risk for breast cancer.

My grandmother had a mastectomy, survived breast cancer, and she is alive at the ripe old of 95 today: my family is blessed and lucky to still have her.  If it is true that more sleep reduces one's risk of developing breast cancer, or any cancer for that matter, then I would ask that more research and resources be allocated to this area of study.  Those who have not been as lucky as we have, families who have lost loved ones to breast cancer, need more specific direction.  Can we develop a specific sleep regimen to recommend for women over 50, for example, that mathematically would reduce breast cancer risk?  Taking into consideration all the unknown factors surrounding breast cancer incidence, we should at least be able to provide guidance for habits that promote healthy sleep -- in turn counteracting associated findings like increased heart rate in sleep-deprived and at-risk (for cancer) individuals.

To the best of my knowledge, my grandmother had healthy sleep habits throughout her adulthood, and good average nightly TST, yet she developed breast cancer.  If Kakizaki's finding is accurate, and one could claim that reduced sleep leads to increased risk for breast cancer, then what was my grandmother doing incorrectly in her nightly routine to avoid the mastectomy?


This finding, however lightly or seriously it is to be taken, nonetheless has captured my attention and has again rekindled my desire to improve my sleep habits.  I have been sleeping about the same duration each night, but not enough, averaging perhaps 6-7 hours.  As an involved college student, I offer that even though some students would report worse yet nightly TST, I can do better.  My nighttime routine has definitely improved since the beginning of the semester, but I look forward to more progress in both sleep quality and duration throughout the next few weeks...if for no other reason, so I can give a good sleep health report to my grandmother the next time I am able to talk with her.

Want to break a bad habit? SLEEP Training can Help You do it!

No, really!  You may be able to quit smoking or put an end to other conditions by using the physiology of sleep to train your body against those cravings.  In Anat Arzi and Noam Sobel's article about the effects of sleep on learning and memory, cigarette addiction was studied as the main the dependent variable for the effects of sleep on addictive behaviors (i.e. smoking).

To conduct this study, 76 "healthy" smokers, mostly young to middle-aged adults wishing to quit smoking were included in a study held in a sleep-olfaction (smell) laboratory, where they slept with masks which first delivered bursts of cigarette odor to them (5 seconds in duration), then an unpleasant odor (duration of 3 seconds), each of these scents delivered in a constant clean airflow (6 liters per minute).  Polysomnography including EEG (brain wave activity), EOG (eye movement), and EMG (chin/ motor movement) were employed as measures of TST (total sleep time) and time spent in each sleep stage.  The control group consisted of a wake "treatment," i.e. the pairing of the aversive odor with cigarette smell during wakefulness instead of during sleep.  They were also partially sleep-deprived.  Because these subjects did not wear masks, they were presented the aversive-pairings at a ratio of 2:1 (partial reinforcement), with a similar presentation of 5 seconds of cigarette odor followed by a 3-second presentation of the unpleasant odor.

Within some experimental variation, results showed a significant difference in smoking cravings between the control/ wake group and the "sleep training" group.  The sleep-trained group showed less desire to smoke and decreased cigarette usage.  I found this successful intervention to be quite interesting and indicative of the direction for which future intervention research methods should aim.  The sleep-trained group likely showed improvement because of the memory-consolidation process they were allotted that their sleep-deprived counterparts were not.  Their brains, even though not in conscious awareness, received the aversive stimuli and encoded it as such while sleeping.  The wake/ control group's brains were not allotted this opportunity.  A lot of research has shown the helpful benefits of sleep for memory consolidation and recall in the setting of academic studies, why not use the body's natural sleep processes to treat addiction as in the case of smoking.

I can see, and would like to see, this research continue and grow in the future.  There are still way too many smokers in the United States, and if a fresh treatment approach is all that is needed to change more lives, then it is worth pouring resources into this area of intervention research.  In 2013, the total number of American smokers was 17% but this number can further be decreased.  An intervention method like this one could be the last step to totally obliterate
smoking from American society!

Students: Cramming for your Tests gets you Nowhere.

Have you ever heard the phrase “practice makes perfect”?  Or at least perhaps “practice makes better”?  It turns out that there in fact is some truth in this statement, but skill perfection is not achieved overnight (pun intended).  Don’t see the pun?  Allow me to explain.  Memory consolidation for tasks that one has practiced, and for which he/she continues to strive toward improvement, require sleep to “solidify,” i.e. “to stick,” so that the brain holds the information in a more accessible place the next time.  Studies have shown that spaced out practice over time has a more positive impact on the learned task than does massed practice...the latter of which being a notion all-too-familiar for college students (procrastination).  Why do we procrastinate?  We are positively reinforced just enough to continue using this study method because it is easier on our schedules’ time constraints.

The article Stephanie Mazza considers learning and relearning as they relate to the sleep-wake cycle, memory consolidation, and practice.  To study these phenomena, healthy participants, ages 18-29 years old, were asked to learn the French translation of 16 Swahili words using only repeated retrieval-restudy practice.  Then, 12 hours later, participants relearned the material as experimenters measured how much practice was needed to do relearn.  The experiment parameters were controlled by the presence of a wake group (between practice sessions), a sleep group (between practice sessions), and a control group.  Retention was tested one week later, then six months later.

During learning, sleep and wake groups did not significantly differ in their number of successful translations.  A plausible explanation of the similarities noted here is the impact of similar sleepiness scores between the wake and sleep groups at the time of learning.  However, after 12 hours, the number of recalled translations was higher for participants in the sleep group than the wake group.  This result is consistent with previous findings that show the benefits of “postlearning” sleep on memory consolidation.  To be precise, participants who slept between learning sessions needed about half as many list trials for relearning as did “sleep-deprived” participants.  Long term retention is noted as well.  General research has shown sleep to both passively protect memory files against decay (simple forgetting) and interference (interruption of memories by the entrance of another memory from either the past or present) and to actively consolidate new memory files.  Memory consolidation during sleep also improves both the retrieval strength and storage strength of involved memories.

Sleep obviously is beneficial to the memory consolidation and retention process, so what are we to do with this information?  Determine immediate and effective ways to get more sleep into our daily schedules.  Starting from square one, we must realize that in the setting of studying for example, massed practice (cramming) does not allow time for proper sleep which promotes memory consolidation…and therefore good test grades, project results, etc.

Some basic things I would suggest, be it to myself, other college students, college-aspiring high school students, or adults, include:

·        creating a rigorous hour-by-hour schedule for each day of the week and sticking to it (suggested time intervals at 30 minutes or an hour).

·        for college students, setting up the schedule such that students are breaking up their study chunks by subjects so as not to burn out on one subject too quickly when great mental focus is needed for the next study increment focused on a different class.

·        Set reasonable goals and reward yourself for reaching those goals by doing an activity afterward that you enjoy and that is healthy.  These activities could include exercise, a meal, socializing, or even watching television – as long as you keep this “break time” within check!

·        When setting these goals, be efficient in accomplishing whatever task it is at hand…spread out its parts and do each part well so that you do not have to return to it.

You will find that employing habits like those listed above, you have much more time in your evenings to rest and go to bed so that your brain can properly consolidate the material you need to learn!

I definitely have observed this in my own sleep health.  Honestly, on days when I have a quiz or informal assessment of some kind, I have found that I perform better when a) I study days ahead instead of the night before or the day of and b) when I sleep “long and well” the night before.  This result is seen across tasks in the workplace, academics, medical evaluation performance, athletic performance, and a myriad of other places.  It’s time we act on the given knowledge and live more efficient and fruitful daily lives.

Should we Rename Sick Days to "I Need to Sleep" Days?

It is a commonly known phrase that "sleep is the best medicine."  How true is this statement?  Very true it seems.  How about instead we allow ourselves enough sleep to avoid becoming sick in the first place?  Just a thought...

The article "Common Cold," by Martica H. Hall, reports that negative sleep-related immune system modification is observed when total or even partial sleep deprivation manifests in humans.  Our immune response is just not at its best when we are sleep deprived, as evidenced by diminished T cell proliferation, changes in T helper cell cytokine responses, and decreased natural killer cell toxicity (Hall 1353).  The factors just mentioned are all integral parts of the body's immune response, increasingly diminished over time with accumulated slept debt.

For this study, sleep data over 4 years was collected on almost 100 healthy men and women with an average age of about 30 years old.  They wore actigraphy devices that measured total sleep time as well as sleep fragmentation (restlessness during periods of sleep).  Self-reported sleep diaries were also employed as a measure of sleep duration and quality.  Essentially, the study aimed to, dare I say, make people sick.  At least they were paid well?  Each person was paid $1000!  Im not sure I would subject myself to this experimental design, but for $1000 maybe I could deal with being sick for a few days.  After all, I have been sick for the last couple weeks anyway -- although, I am finally almost done with my cough!

The results of the study showed, not surprisingly, that shorter sleep duration led to increased risk for developing sickness, including but not limited to a "run-of-the-mill" cold.  Sleep fragmentation however, and self-report measures, did not show a significant correlation to increased susceptibility.  Still, following a 7-day period, increased incidence of common cold was noted with shorter sleep duration and sleep deprivation.  The relationship between susceptibility to cold and sleep duration was found to be linear.

Again, I got sick a couple of weeks ago following a period of sleep deprivation combined with a busy schedule, so the linear relationship found between slept duration and susceptibility to sickness does not at all surprise me.  However, I am not entirely convinced that increased fragmented sleep leads to the same susceptibility (as the study aimed to find, but resulted without statistical significance).  I would like to see more research done into the area of fragmented sleep and incidence of illness, as I think the public would benefit from as well.

Don't disappoint Forrest, Forrest Gump, ladies and gentlemen.  Get enough sleep so that you don't contract a "cough due to cold" (or any other ailment for that matter; I'm looking at you Jenny).

This week I commented on Ashley Zapata's and Rachel Moore's blogs.

You are NOT Superhuman. Get Some Sleep.

Research in the area of sleep has truly grown in recent years, and we have so many more insights into the effect of sleep on human functioning such as motor vehicle operation or simple daytime sleepiness.  "Catastrophes, Sleep, and Public Policy: Consensus Report" by Mitler, Carskadon, Czeisler, Dement, Dinges, and Graeber compiles the findings from several previous studies conducted by these authors.  Tests previously used include the Multiple Sleep Latency Test, and the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test.  Frequency of naps and the time periods of sleep stages were also previously considered.  The authors cite an impactful discovery in the finding that the neural processes controlling alertness and sleep create an increased sleep tendency and decreased ability to properly function early in the morning, as well as during the afternoon 'slump' we all feel between roughly 2 pm and 5 pm, although the latter occurrence is to a notably lesser degree.  I note that the effects of sleep loss are in cumulative, continuously increasing the risk of an error from sudden extreme sleepiness with accumulated sleep debt.  Physical activity and dietary stimulants (i.e. caffeine) only work for so long ... during long enough periods of sustained stillness while sleep-deprived, we get overwhelmingly sleepy and easily fall asleep.

So am I not to be blamed for falling asleep in class?  No, my process "S" (my body's awareness of its own need for sleep) is to be blamed.  But: the truth is that my body's actions are under my conscious control because I can choose to get enough sleep every day.  Deaths increase during the "sleepiness zone" between about 3 and 6 am as well as during the afternoon 'slump' mentioned before.  The number of heart attacks occurring increases between 6 and 10 am.  Most striking to me, the number of fatigue-related car accidents sees one of its largest peaks in the parameters here studied between 1 am and 7 am, particularly in the early morning hours.

I already mentioned in one of my previous blogs that my cousin, a while ago, but not too far removed from memory, was in a bad fatigue-related car accident.  She crashed around 5 am, during a roughly 5-hour drive, towards the end of her commute.  She was alone on this trip.  Again, she survived, somehow without injury, but she was very shaken up -- as was I and the rest of our family.  She totaled her car.  She was not superhuman, immune to the effects of sleep deprivation, and neither am I.

The article humbly noted that a direct correlation between human responses and incident errors from lowered alertness, delayed reaction, or inattention cannot be shown.  However, there is enough data to actually suggest that the effect cannot be zero, or that an effect of 0 is unlikely to say the least.  Sleep and related factors are no doubt involved in a myriad of history's disasters.  With this knowledge, the author committee of this article created a list of recommendations to readers including but not limited to: (1) encouraging policy makers in organized labor, management, and government to monitor the effects of sleep physiology on performance, (2) creating programs that identify signs of sleep-related error, (3) being cognizant of time zones for vulnerable performance, (4) implementing adaptive work shifts focused on promoting sufficient and healthy sleep so as to promote safety in the workplace with minimal expense and (5) pursuing more research into the area of human function as it relates to sleep health.

 

I had 2 lacrosse games yesterday, on about 6.5 hours of sleep.  I also had to drive an hour to the location of both of my games.  When I arrived, I felt sleepy and "slow."  As soon as we started running, my alertness increased but I can't help but think this adjustment would not have been needed with a proper amount of sleep.  I cannot help but think that the couple of times I got beat on defense, my slow reactions were attributed to lack of sleep.  I have definitely noticed proportionally slower cognitive ability with less sleep.  So maybe the myth of the all-nighter study session should be busted?  I would definitely love to see more research conducted with sleep-deprived college students on functional ability.  College students need to be better educated on the effects of sleep deprivation, including myself.  College students would benefit from more exposure to information on the combined effects of alcohol, caffeine, and sleep-deprivation.  We would benefit from more exposure to information simply on how to sleep more, study less, and use time wisely.  I would enjoy pursuing this area of research myself.