Sleep Is Your Life Support System!

I share the TED talk by Matt Walker titled, Sleep is Your Superpower, because I believe it is vital to your health. Walker is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep. https://bit.ly/3pMEQqG   

 Especially important was his discussion on how sleep effects learning and memory abilities especially in the aging mind.  A common physiological development in aging is sleep gets worse and deep sleep is disrupted. This contributes to decline and quite possibly the development of dementia.  He reports that a lack of sleep can age you by 10-years.  He discusses that sleeping pills are not helping but that there is a potential new treatment that is being studied. Direct current brain stimulation using very small voltage is used.  The person does not feel this and there seems to be an increase in deep sleep brain waves as a result.  This will be further studied for the aging brain.

Other highlights of the talk were that a lack of sleep decreases the amount of natural killer cells you have in your immune system significantly.  This can increase your risk of cancer and other diseases. A lack of sleep can effect your genes as well. All in all his statement “short sleep short life” is an important and concerning one.

To improve your sleep habits see the infographic Best Night’s Sleep from John’s Hopkins sleep expert, Rachel Salas, MD.  https://bit.ly/3iC04pF