Sleep Habits May Affect Brain Function
People once believed that sleep was simply a
period of deep rest. Now researchers know that
sleep is actually an active process for the brain.
This is the time the body uses to repair and
restore itself.
Too little or too much sleep may make your
brain age more quickly, a study says. And another
sleep study found that having sleep apnea may
increase the risk for mild thinking problems or
dementia.
LIMITED REST
The first study looked at data on more than 15,000
women in the Nurses’ Health Study. Participants
were followed for 14 years, beginning in middle
age. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital in Boston found that people who slept
each day for either five or fewer hours, or nine or
more hours, had lower mental functioning than
people who slept seven hours a day. Getting too
little or too much sleep was the equivalent of
aging mentally by two years, the researchers say.
And women whose sleep patterns changed by
two or more hours a day from middle age to later
years also had worse mental functioning than
women whose sleep patterns didn’t change.
Researchers found that extreme changes in sleep
duration might disrupt the circadian rhythm,
making cognitive function worse. Circadian
rhythm refers to the physical, mental and
behavioral changes that occur in a 24-hour cycle.
DISRUPTED SLEEP
For the second study, researchers from the
University of California, San Francisco, measured
the sleep quality of more than 1,300 women older
than 75. They found that participants with sleep
apnea or other disordered sleep were more than
twice as likely to develop mild cognitive
impairment or dementia over five years as those
without those conditions. It was not determined
whether sleep changes were signs of a future
decline or caused by a decline, however.
STAGES OF SLEEP
So what happens during the night?
There are the four basic stages of sleep.
The later stages are when restoration
of your body and brain occurs.
• Stage 1. The first stage of sleep is the
lightest stage. At this point, your body
processes slow down, and you may
experience a sensation of falling. You
begin drifting toward deeper stages of
sleep. If awakened, which happens
easily in this stage, you may remember
images or waking dreams. Your arm,
leg, or another part of your body may
jump suddenly in this stage.
• Stage 2. You spend about half of your
slumber in this stage. Your eye
movements stop and your brain waves
slow down. If the electrical pulses that
make up your brain waves were
monitored, those watching might see
slow waves known as theta waves and
sudden bursts of activity, called sleep
spindles. This is when bedroom
temperature matters — a room that’s
either too warm or too cold can make it
difficult to reach this stage of sleep.
• Stage 3. Deeper into sleep, your brain
waves slow profoundly into delta waves.
You still may have sudden bursts of
brain activity at this stage. Stages 3 and
4 are the stages in which your body and
brain make all the repairs that help you
get back on your feet after a tough day.
• Stage 4. During this stage, slow delta
brain waves become more prominent.
This is your most restorative sleep, and
it is much harder to awaken from this
stage than from stage 1. In fact, you
could be extremely disoriented if this
were to happen. Sleepwalking and
sleep talking are most common in this
stage. During stages 3 and 4, your
body also releases hormones crucial
to growth and development.
Once detected, most sleep disorders can be corrected. If you
have trouble sleeping, contact our Sleep Diagnostic Center at
812-376-5246 or ask your healthcare provider for a referral.
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