Sleep is essential to our health. A deficit can compromise our immune systems, cause inflammation, lead to memory loss and weight gain, hamper reflexes and decision-making skills, and increase the risk of chronic diseases like cancer and type 2 diabetes.
Until now, though, the exact mechanisms of how sleep helps us were more or less a mystery.
While we slumber, report researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center in the journal Science, our brains flush out toxins that build up when we’re awake — allowing us to clear our heads.
“This study [on mice] shows that the brain has different functional states when asleep and when awake,” says study lead author Maiken Nedergaard, MD, DMSc. “In fact, the restorative nature of sleep appears to be the result of the active clearance of the byproducts of neural activity that accumulate during wakefulness.”
The glymphatic system in our brains serves as plumbing: It includes a network of passageways between the brain’s cells that controls the flow of the clear liquid surrounding the brain and spinal cord, known as cerebrospinal fluid.
These passageways undergo dramatic changes between sleep and waking moments. Specifically, the study showed, sleep increases the space where cerebrospinal fluid circulates by 60 percent, allowing room for unnecessary byproducts to be flushed from the brain.
For example, almost every neurodegenerative disease — including Alzheimer’s — is associated with the buildup of toxic proteins in the brain. Researchers suspect that it is the accumulation of these proteins that can kill neurons and lead to dementia. Sleep appears to support the brain’s innate ability to identify and dump these damaging proteins.
“Sleep changes the cellular structure of the brain,” Nedergaard says. “It appears to be in a completely different state.”
Or get your cortisol level checked (1st thing in the a.m.)
There is no doubt optimal sleep makes a huge difference in health and longevity. Unfortunately, there can be many reasons for poor sleep, i.e. poor diet, anxiety and stress, chemical imbalances. A major reason for poor sleep often goes unnoticed and under-appreciated by the traditional medical community – Adrenal Exhaustion. The adrenal glands are intimately linked to brain function through the production of cortisol. Too little cortisol and our brain cells under function. Too much cortisol and the brain is over-stimulated creating difficulties in turning off electrical activity in the brain. This latter situation makes it very difficult for the brain to relax and enter the deeper states of sleep. For anyone dealing with poor sleep it is recommended to have adrenal function tested to evaluate for deficiency or excess production of cortisol. A good nights sleep can depend on it.