Say Goodnight: The Kids Are All Right

Image from Sawdust City

Finally, a youthful trend that geezers not only understand but can support: 20-somethings are sleeping longer and going to bed earlier. [bold added]

Today’s 18-to-35-year-olds say they understand the link between sleep and health better than people once did, with many seeing the long- and short-term benefits of more shut-eye. Younger people also say they take comfort in seizing control over their bedtime routines, finding solace in saying no to even a late-night dinner.

Businesses have adjusted in turn, with bars adding matinee dance parties and other daytime events.

In 2022, those in their 20s reported getting an average of nine hours and 28 minutes of sleep, according to an analysis of American Time Use Survey data by RentCafe. That is an 8% increase from the eight hours and 47 minutes they said they slept in 2010. Those in their 30s and 40s saw smaller increases.

Bedtimes are also creeping earlier. An analysis of more than two million total Sleep Number smart-bed customers found that those between 18 and 34 went to bed at 10:06 p.m. on average in January, compared with 10:18 p.m. last January.

Your humble blogger is lucky to still be around after 40 years of sleep deprivation and consumption of at least 3 cups of coffee every day to stay awake. It's good to see that newer generations are not repeating our mistakes and have made sleep a priority.

Young people going to bed earlier can also lead to reversing the decline in population, but that's a study for another day.

The Best Time for Dinner, Health-wise

The science is settled: eat more steak dinners.

The best time to eat dinner "is four hours before bedtime": [bold added]

The most important factor in the dinnertime calculus is melatonin, the hormone that signals it’s time to sleep, says Satchidananda Panda, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Melatonin, which begins to rise about three hours before we go to bed, also tells the pancreas to cut back on insulin production. If we have a sugar spike after eating late, our body has a harder time regulating blood sugar, Panda says. This could put us at risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. For that reason, he says the ideal dinnertime is three to four hours before bed.

What we eat for dinner matters, too. Slower-digesting food like meat keeps us full longer.

“Only in the last hundred years have we seen easily digestible, highly processed food,” Panda says, explaining that nearly 70% of the calories we eat now come from carbohydrates.

For weight control we have long been advised that late-night eating is bad. Now the adage has meat on its bones: snacking leads to a sugar spike, just when insulin production is decreasing before bedtime. Such "hormonal fluctuations" lead to weight gain, diabetes, and other health problems.

Speaking of meat, dinnertime consumption of slower-digesting food leaves us with a longer feeling of fullness, which reduces the desire to snack and the chances that hunger pangs will awaken us too early.

Taking this advice seriously, I'm not going to reach for the chips but a glass of warm milk before bedtime. Grandma always knew best.

Use Hose When Your Toes Repose

(USA Today photo)

I never did this during my Hawaiian childhood, but cold winter nights on the Mainland--with the interior heat turned down to 60°F--encouraged me to wear socks to bed, which turns out to be a controversial choice:

an under-cover inquiry by The Wall Street Journal finds that socks-in-bed is dividing couples and the public square. Opponents physically recoil at the notion, and say people who snooze in socks can’t be trusted.

The emotional backlash is surprising, because science supports leaving the socks on:

A study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology found that young men fell asleep 7.5 minutes faster, slept 32 minutes longer and woke up 7.5 times less often than those not wearing socks.

It might seem socks would make you too toasty. But counterintuitively, researchers say, socks help lower core temperatures, a process that assists sleep.

Chilly feet can raise the temperature by sending more blood, and heat, to core areas, according to the Cleveland Clinic, which explains: “So, what does adding in a fluffy pair of socks do? Those cuddly duds warm your feet, relaxing and widening blood vessels that constricted while cold. This improved blood circulation in your overall body helps release more heat through your skin.”

Comments:
1) Adapt to the circumstances. If your feet become uncomfortably warm, take the socks off.
2) Wear a clean pair to bed, preferably after showering or at least washing the feet.
3) The animus against socks probably stems from the days when men wore dark dress socks to work. Wearing the same pair to bed is the mark of an uncivilized person. If someone shares your bed, you have only yourself to blame for the long-term consequences.

New Year's Resolutions: Limited Accountability

These resolutions, reproduced from four years ago, are more like good habits to be developed than concrete goals (it's the contrast between "lose weight" and "lose 10 pounds"):

More	Less
Reading books	Web-surfing
Water	Sugar
Getting rid of stuff	Buying stuff
Taking courses	Electronic games
Writing letters	Saying "yes"
Sleep	Texting, esp. thank-you's
Fruits and vegetables	Fried foods
Exercise	TV
Organization	Procrastination

I'm going to apply numerical criteria; the first, "reading books," will become "read one book each month." As for the rest, I'm going to keep them to myself. Public accountability is over-rated.

Nature, not Nurture

(Illustration from TS2)

I've been a "morning person" since the Eighties and have long believed that that characteristic was instilled by having to be out the door on weekdays by 6:30 a.m. Having been retired for over ten years has not broken me of the early-rising habit, which raises the possibility of a genetic explanation: [bold added]

new research suggests DNA inherited from our extinct Neanderthal cousins ups the chance we’re early risers.

Our circadian rhythms—the biological clocks inside our cells that time when we sleep and wake—are linked to countless genes. Now researchers say they have found that bits of genetic code passed down to some of us from Neanderthals relate to our sleeping habits in the present day. The study was published Thursday in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.

“We’ve found many Neanderthal variants that consistently associate with a propensity for being a morning person,” said Tony Capra, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco and co-author of the new work. “Their effects are in the context of hundreds of other genes, but it is suggestive there is something meaningful about this.”

Being a carrier of Neanderthal genes explains a lot of things to partners (incuding mine) of early risers.

Just Wanting to be a Regular Person

Strive to be regular in all things.

Sleep longevity (7-9 hours every night) has been difficult to achieve for many people, including your humble blogger. But there could be another path to good health: sleep regularity.

A recent study looking at sleep and longevity found that sleep “regularity”—going to bed and waking up at consistent times with few mid-slumber interruptions—matters more than how long you sleep. Sleeping six hours every night on a consistent schedule was associated with a lower risk of early death than sleeping eight hours with very irregular habits.

This finding comports with my personal experience. I frequently wake at 2 a.m. and putter around for a couple of hours. After I return to bed, the total time asleep, according to the Apple Watch, may be close to seven hours. But I feel better rested when I sleep for six hours straight.

Late in life I'm finding how crucial regularity is to good health in more than one bodily system.

Sleeping is not an Old Person's Game

(Pokémon Sleep images)

The growing research on the importance of sleep to health has resulted in a plethora of advice on how to fall and stay asleep for the recommended 7-9 hours.

The doctor said that there are medications available, but I'm foregoing that solution unless the problem becomes more acute, say, if I can't sleep for more than five hours a night.

As in all matters of health, like diet and exercise, there are now people who are obsessed with sleeping well. [bold added]

for millions, chasing winks with the latest sleep-measuring technology has become a nighttime sport, complete with sleep scores and strategies on how to best sack the competition. Some people are even, well, losing sleep about whether they are sleeping up to their full potential...

[Mike Skerett] has deployed tactics including blackout curtains and taping his mouth shut to max out his sleep score on Whoop’s app.

“I can see that on days when I tape my mouth during sleep, I have a 7% higher recovery score in the morning than on days when I don’t,” he says...

“I am disciplined and competing my ass off to get somewhere between eight and seven hours every night,” Michael Gervais, a performance psychologist who advises chief executives and Olympic athletes, said on his podcast recently.

The Apple Watch, which records the duration of each stage of sleep (REM, core, and deep) provides all the monitoring I require.

"Competitive sleeping," two words that I had never seen paired until this moment, sounds counter-productive because of the heightened effect that competition has on heart and brain activity.

A related point: if we're advised to turn off all our devices before going to bed, how is Pokémon Sleep going to help?

Deep Sleep and Alzheimer's

The Apple Watch says I'm not getting enough
Deep Sleep. Alzheimer's could be in my future.

Sleep has long been correlated with brain health, and inadequate deep sleep in particular is connected with Alzheimer's disease.

During deep sleep, the brain produces slow electrical waves and flushes out neurotoxins including amyloid and tau, two hallmarks of the disease.

Studies have shown that even one night of lousy deep sleep can lead to an increase of amyloid. A week of disrupted sleep can raise the amount of tau, which is especially insidious because over time it can strangle neurons from the inside out...

In their study, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, examine how deep sleep affected memory in cognitively normal seniors. What they found is that more deep sleep significantly improved performance on memory tests in patients with higher levels of amyloid and who were therefore at higher risk for Alzheimer’s...

Tne implication is that improving deep sleep could help people at highest risk for Alzheimer’s retain their mental capacities. Sleeping aids might be one way to do it. Studies have also found that exposure to odors like lavender and auditory stimulation at night can improve deep sleep. Regular, moderate exercise does too.

Overnight observation at a sleep clinic is still the gold standard for diagnosis, and a doctor's order is necessary to obtain a CPAP machine and certain medications.

The Apple Watch did confirm the tiredness that I had been feeling, and if lifestyle changes don't do the trick I'm off to the local sleep center. Staving off Alzheimer's is a powerful motivator.

And How Did That Make You Feel?

(Sleepstation image)

To the list of tips for falling asleep (turn off screens, avoid stimulating entertainment, don't exercise before bed, etc.) sleep specialists have added savoring: [bold added]

Savoring is well-studied as a strategy to improve our general well-being. A considerable body of research shows that it can boost mood and help reduce depression and anxiety. Now, psychologists believe it can help us fall asleep and have better sleep quality, and are starting to study its effectiveness.

Many of us ruminate as we’re trying to drift off. This is where savoring can help. “It gives your brain something else to focus on—something emotionally compelling and pleasurable,” says Dana McMakin, a professor of psychology at Florida International University, who studies savoring.

Savoring differs from other strategies you may use before going to sleep. When you savor, you try to re-create the positive emotional state of the experience. It’s not the same as practicing gratitude, which involves thinking about something rather than trying to feel it. And it’s different from meditating or trying to be mindful, in which the goal is to quiet your mind. Savoring aims to fill it up with positive emotion.

One has to be selective in the positive memories one dredges up: memories from childhood with people who are long gone can turn sad; moments of triumph and vindication can be exhilarating...and stimulative; and of course, recalling savoring's original gustatory meaning, reliving pleasant dining experiences can make one hungry, not sleepy.

Come to think of it (or not), to get to sleep I'll just stick with emptying my mind, not filling it with thoughts, however pleasant they may be.

It's the Content That Keeps Us Wide-Eyed

(Cleveland Clinic photo)

The blue light on our smartphone is a minor factor in keeping us awake at night. The content is a much greater disruptor.

If we come across alarming news, a scary movie or an annoying work email right before bed or in the middle of the night, the stress hormone cortisol can rise. A spike in cortisol provides an energy boost by moving glucose from a stored state in the body to an active state. “It’s like eating a candy bar,” says Jamie Zeitzer, co-director of the Stanford Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences. Coming down from that energy rush can be difficult.

Positive content can be just as disruptive because it can increase the amount of dopamine or norepinephrine in the brain, two neurotransmitters Dr. Zeitzer says can excite the thalamus—the brain’s information-relay center—and disrupt the brain-wave oscillations needed for sleep.

Turning off the phone completely is an obvious solution. The sleep-tracking app is also effective; it dims the iPhone and Apple Watch 15 minutes before the targeted bedtime.

But if you must surf in bed, dear reader, I've been told this blog is an excellent soporific...

“The eyes are truly the window to our souls”

Maybe her eyes can tell us what she's thinking

The nature of consciousness has long been a fundamental question of human existence, and it's no surprise that scientists are employing scientific methods to improve our understanding of the subject.

For example, human beings are not "conscious" when they are asleep, so one criterion of consciousness is that a person must be aware of objects in the person's surroundings: [bold added]

[Researchers] used a combination of artificial intelligence, mathematics, and a close examination of the eye movements of individuals as they were shown images of people’s faces.

As it turns out, they found that important clues are revealed in the eyes. When people were shown clear images, their eye movements showed a distinct pattern that indicates they were aware of their surroundings. However, as the subjects were presented with progressively dimmer images of faces, the pattern of eye movement changed. Tracking these changes, [Yale Prof. Hal] Blumenfeld said, allowed researchers to discern whether the subjects actually perceived the face or not without asking them.

“The eyes are truly the window to our souls,” he said. “We can tell if people are aware of something by simply looking at their eyes.”

The eye-tracking tool allowed researchers to explore the amorphous dividing line between consciousness and unconsciousness, a state most obvious as we awake from sleep. People become progressively more aware of their surroundings as slumber recedes, a process that is controlled in a region of the brain known as the thalamus.

Ultrasound waves directed at the
thalamus can "jump start" coma
patients (Medindia)

The Yale researchers found that when people awake the thalamus discharges a brief pulse which jumpstarts the transition to consciousness. However, this activity is only a first step in a series of actions throughout the brain that leads to full awareness, they found. For instance, that initial pulse from the thalamus may fail to activate other neural networks, keeping the individual unconscious of most surrounding stimuli. However, the pulse can also activate neurons involved in processing visual cues in the frontal cortex, which in turn amplifies circuits involved in arousal and attention. At the same time, signals irrelevant to the event are turned off.

To those of us who have friends or relatives who regularly experience visual and/or auditory hallucinations, the research into consciousness and awareness can't proceed fast enough.

But for those like your humble blogger, whose brain is healthily grounded in reality (!) and is concerned about scientists being able to read thoughts through eye movements, wearing sunglasses is strongly recommended.

Independence Day, 2022

Hillsdale Blvd, the busiest street in Foster City,
was closed to traffic next to Ryan Park.

After a two-year hiatus the Independence Day festivities returned to Foster City bigger than ever.

The roads surrounding Ryan Park were closed to traffic.

The viewing areas in the park have become so desirable that the City has implemented a reservation system, and families began setting up their tents before noon.

By early evening seats were at a premium, and some fireworks-watchers sat on a curb across the street, almost as if they were at a parade.

Except for the little kids who ran freely, the crowd respected each other's boundaries. It was a traditional assemblage; beer was everywhere, and I couldn't detect a whiff of marijuana.

After enjoying the ambience of a warm, humid, music-filled walk in the park, I headed home for a barbecue dinner.

The fireworks show would end close to 10 p.m., past bedtime, and I need my beauty sleep. I missed the show, but I could hear it a mile away. Maybe next year....

Intuitive Eating

(Image from nutritionist resource)

It was easy to strike a New Year's resolution off the list. I didn't achieve it, I just crossed it out.

Losing 10 pounds is no longer important. (Some) dietitians say that losing weight should not be the goal.

One should focus on "intuitive eating":

Many anti-diet proponents instead advocate intuitive eating, or listening to the body’s innate signals around hunger, fullness and food preferences. Central to the process is giving up tracking weight and categorizing foods as morally good or bad.

Rather than lose weight by denying one's craving, one should focus on eating but not overeating, exercising moderately in activities (e.g.,walking, golf, bicycling) one enjoys, and going to bed when one is tired.

A more accurate term might be intuitive living with guardrails. The weight and health will take care of themselves.

Don't Disturb Grandpa While He's Sleeping

(Washington School of Medicine illustration)

At last July's check-up I asked the doctor why I have to get up in the middle of the night to relieve myself. His response: as men age, the prostate enlarges and presses against the bladder; it's all quite natural and nothing to worry about.

Though comforting, his statement didn't address the problem of going back to sleep (I stay awake till morning about a third of the time).

The importance of sleep has been confirmed by yet another study: [bold added]

People age 50 or 60 who regularly slept six hours or less each night were more likely than those who slept seven hours to be diagnosed with dementia, according to the study published Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Even after controlling for cardiac, metabolic and mental-health issues, the study researchers found that 50-year-olds who were sleeping six hours or less a night had a 22% higher risk of developing dementia later in life. Sixty-year-olds were 37% more likely to develop the disorder. The comparisons were with people who slept for seven hours each night.

What about the risk if one can go back to sleep after using the bathroom?

Studies have also shown that interruptions preventing people from getting a good night’s sleep are associated with higher dementia risk later on.

Past research also suggests that obesity, high systolic blood pressure and mental-health issues like depression increase the risk of sleep issues and dementia.

This research on inadequate sleep is keeping me up at night.

Melatonin: More Than Sleep Benefits

Melatonin supplements are helpful because "blue
light" inhibits production by the pineal gland.
(sleepy scientist)

Beginning this year I've been taking a 3-mg tablet of melatonin every night. Coincidence or not, the result has been five hours of uninterrupted sleep instead of the usual 2-3 hours since turning 60.

In addition to being a hormone that seems to help people sleep, melatonin has other health benefits:

it can help combat inflammation, promote weight loss, and maybe even help children with neurodevelopmental disorders...

One 2011 review found evidence that, in children with autism, melatonin supplementation led to improved sleep and better daytime behavior. A small 2017 study from Poland found that obese adults who took a daily 10 mg melatonin supplement for 30 days while eating a reduced-calorie diet lost almost twice as much weight as a placebo group. The underlying cause might be connected to the fact that blood measures of oxidative damage and inflammation were much lower in the people who took melatonin...

Inflammation, like poor sleep, is implicated in the development or progression of an array of diseases, from heart disease and diabetes to depression and dementia. If melatonin could safely promote both better sleep and lower rates of inflammation, it could be a potent preventative for a lot of those ills. And melatonin appears to be safe—though there isn’t much research on the long-term effects of taking it in heavy doses.

Over your humble blogger's lifetime daily doses of various substances have been touted as the key to good health, e.g., vitamin C, vitamin E, baby aspirin, oatmeal, red wine, and fish oil. Melatonin is just the latest in a long line of these miraculous foods and tablets.

Well, I don't know about inflammation, weight loss, and neuro-health. As long as I'm sleeping better--and until that nearly inevitable study comes out about melatonin's harmful effects--I'll continue to pop a pill every night.

Blood Thinners and CPAP Machines

Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled (RDBPC) studies are the gold standard when it comes to testing vaccines and medicines. Unfortunately, they take a long time--typically well over a year--to conduct, and the coronavirus' damage to health and the economy doesn't allow leeway to develop RDBPC solutions.

Medical practitioners are now forced to make educated guesses about possible treatments: [bold added]

2013 sleep study resulted in
us getting a CPAP machine

Regardless of the cause, anecdotal evidence of blood clots in COVID-19 patients is prompting many physicians to examine more closely whether a certain subgroup of these patients — those sick enough to be hospitalized — should receive blood thinners as a preventive measure as soon as they’re admitted.

The American Society of Hematology’s recently updated recommendations include the use of low-dose blood thinners for hospitalized COVID-19 patients unless they have a condition that puts them at higher risk of bleeding...

it was New York emergency room doctors who told their West Coast counterparts about the apparent unexpected benefits of keeping patients off ventilators as much as possible...

This is a pivot away from earlier thought, which was that COVID-19 patients who came to the hospital struggling to breathe should be intubated, or placed on a ventilator. But anecdotal evidence from hospitals in New York and Italy shows that patients often do better than expected with less invasive treatments that help them breathe — CPAP machines, which administer oxygen through a mask, and high-flow nasal cannula, where oxygen tubes are inserted into the nostrils.

Blood thinners and CPAP machines are not the gold standard, but anecdotal evidence is still evidence.

2020 Resolutions: More and Less

More	Less
Reading books	Web-surfing
Water	Sugar
Getting rid of stuff	Buying stuff
Taking courses	Electronic games
Writing letters	Saying "yes"
Sleep	Texting, esp. thank-you's
Fruits and vegetables	Fried foods
Exercise	TV
Organization	Procrastination

The Science Says Settle In

Research has proved not only what I believe, but what I want to believe; naps improve heart health. [bold added]

(Graphic from CBS News)

researchers found that Swiss adults who took one or two daytime naps per week had a lower risk of heart problems, including heart disease and strokes, than non-nappers....Almost 3,500 Swiss adults ages 35 to 75 took part in the study. They provided researchers information about their napping habits, nighttime sleep, demographics and lifestyle information, and underwent a range of medical tests meant to assess their overall health....

During up to eight years of follow-up, 155 people had a heart problem. The researchers found that people who took one or two daytime naps per week had a lower risk of cardiovascular issues than non-nappers, even after adjusting for excessive daytime sleepiness (which can be a symptom of underlying health issues), nighttime sleep duration and demographic and lifestyle factors. The connection between more frequent naps and heart health was not as strong.

These short snoozes could be a valuable way to relieve stress and compensate for inadequate sleep at night, thereby protecting heart health, the paper says. Sleep deprivation is a known risk factor for conditions including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and mental distress, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So naps could help the roughly one-third of Americans who don’t get the recommended minimum seven hours of rest per night.

However, more research is needed on your humble blogger's cohort:

The new study did find an exception for adults older than 65. They did not see heart-health benefits associated with occasional napping, perhaps because they tend to have more health problems and nap for longer amounts of time than younger adults, according to the study.

We shall rest until we find out more!

Making It So Easy

Never much of a line at the Treasure Truck. I don't
see how it can be a money-maker for Amazon.

Three times a week around 10 a.m. Amazon texts me about an item on the Treasure Truck.

Though I've considered daily specials such as an Acer Chromebook ($199), Air Plant Terrarium Kit ($19.99), a Chemical Guys car wash kit ($26.99), a bidet sprayer ($19.99--ok, kidding about considering a purchase), diamond necklace ($849.99), or electric skateboard ($799), I've never pulled the trigger....until last week.

Amazingly compact!

The Klymit Static V Sleeping Pad, according to the ad, is lightweight, compact, durable, and easily inflatable. Today it was marked down from $49.99 to $29.99. At 40% off it was a deal that I couldn't pass up.

It was a simple matter to prepay the sleeping pad on my Amazon account and select one of the three options for the pickup, in this case the Stonestown Galleria between 3:30 and 5:30. Life has never been sweeter than in 2019---finding out about all the stuff you never thought you needed and making it so easy to buy them.

The sleeping pad rolls out to seven feet. Bonus: it's green, the color of the virtuous.

The Dread Disease

(Image from hyperactivz)

Progress towards a cure for Alzheimer's is slow, in good part because scientists have not found a definitive cause for the dread disease. For years researchers had focused on the high correlation between Alzheimer's and amyloid plaques ("a type of protein which is often found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients after they die"), but experimental drugs that reduced the plaques in mice did not reduce their Alzheimer's symptoms.

There is, however, significant evidence that factors that are associated with good health--a balanced diet and regular sleep and exercise---do reduce the risk of Alzheimer's.

Diet: [bold added]

the best evidence for nutritional prevention of Alzheimer's disease is through foods rather than vitamin supplements. Many of the foods that are good sources of vitamin E are also rich in n-3 fatty acids and unhydrogenated, unsaturated fats — the dietary components with the most convincing evidence of neuroprotection to date. Among these foods are oil-based salad dressings, nuts, seeds, fish, mayonnaise, and eggs. Patients should limit their intake of foods that are high in saturated and transunsaturated fats, such as red meats, butter, ice cream, commercially baked products, and some margarines that contain partially hydrogenated oils.

Sleep:

Impaired sleep has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Studies suggest that sleep plays a role in clearing beta-amyloid out of the brain. Moreover, lack of sleep has been shown to elevate brain beta-amyloid levels in mice.

Exercise:

New research shows that physical exercise can “clean up” the hostile environments in the brains of Alzheimer’s mice, allowing new nerve cells in the hippocampus, the brain structure involved in memory and learning, to enable cognitive improvements, such as learning and memory.

A healthy lifestyle is no guarantee that one won't contract the dread disease, but I think of it this way: it increases the odds of my hanging around until a cure is found.