Ignore This Essential Habit and Your Health Will Eventually Decline

By Dr. Mercola

Researchers have learned that circadian rhythms—the 24-hour cycles known as your internal body clock—are involved in everything from sleep to weight gain, mood disorders, and a variety of diseases.

Your body actually has many internal clocks—in your brain, lungs, liver, heart and even your skeletal muscles—and they all work to keep your body running smoothly by controlling temperature and the release of hormones.

It's well known that lack of sleep can increase your chances of getting sick. A new study shows just how direct that connection is.

The research found that the circadian clocks of mice control an essential immune system gene that helps their bodies sense and ward off bacteria and viruses. When levels of that particular gene, called toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), were at their highest, the mice were better able to withstand infections.

Interestingly, when the researchers induced sepsis, the severity of the disease was dependent on the timing of the induction. Severity directly correlated with cyclical changes in TLR9.

According to the authors, this may help explain why septic patients are known to be at higher risk of dying between the hours of 2 am and 6 am.

Furthermore, they also discovered that when mice were vaccinated when TLR9 was peaking, they had an enhanced immune response to the vaccine. The researchers believe vaccine effectiveness could be altered depending on the time of day the vaccination is administered...

According to study author Erol Fikrig, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicineⁱ:

"These findings not only unveil a novel, direct molecular link between circadian rhythms and the immune system, but also open a new paradigm in the biology of the overall immune response with important implications for the prevention and treatment of disease. Furthermore, patients in the ICU often have disturbed sleep patterns, due to noise, nocturnal light exposure and medications; it will be important to investigate how these factors influence TLR9 expression levels and immune responses."

Lack of Sleep Worsens Stress-Related Immune Depression

One of the first studies to provide direct evidence linking sleep with the human stress-immune relationship dates back to 1998ⁱⁱ. Stress is also known to interfere with immune system function, and has been found to increase susceptibility to the common cold and slow wound healing.

In that 1998 study, the researchers discovered that people who were more likely to awaken during the first sleep cycle also tended to have lower levels of natural killer cells (NKC). Overall, the age of the patient was the greatest determinant of NKC level, but sleep disturbances were responsible for about 12 percent of the variance in NKC level.

Are You Living in Sync with Your Natural Body Clock?

Sleeping well is one of the cornerstones of optimal health, and if you ignore your poor sleeping habits, you will, in time, pay a price. In general, you will feel best and maintain optimal health when your lifestyle is in line with your circadian rhythm. It's wise to establish healthful routines of eating, exercising and sleeping, and to stick to them every day, including the weekends.

Unfortunately, sleep deprivation is such a chronic condition these days that you might not even realize you suffer from it. Your circadian rhythm has evolved over many years to align your physiology with your environment. However, it operates under the assumption that you are behaving as your ancestors did. Historically, humans have slept at night and stayed awake during the day. If you stay up late at night, depriving yourself of sleep, you send conflicting signals to your body.

As a result, you body gets confused and doesn't know whether it should be producing chemicals to help you sleep, or gear up for the beginning of a new day.

Melatonin is another chemical closely tied to your circadian rhythm. It's a pineal hormone and a very potent antioxidant, created in your brain during sleep.

Among its many functions, it slows the production of estrogen and is well known to suppress tumor development, which is why insomnia may increase your risk of cancer. Melatonin also helps suppress harmful free radicals. Melatonin production can be severely disrupted simply by exposing yourself to bright light late at night. Just switching a bedside lamp on and off in an otherwise pitch-black room produces a drop in melatonin levels. This is why it's so important to turn off the lights as the evening wears on, and avoid watching TV and working on the computer late at night.

How Sleep Influences Your Physical Health

Without good sleep, optimal health may remain elusive, even if you eat well and exercise (although those factors will tend to improve your ability to sleep better). Aside from directly impacting your immune function, another explanation for why poor sleep can have such varied detrimental effects on your health is that your circadian system "drives" the rhythms of biological activity at the cellular level. Hence disruptions tend to cascade outward throughout your entire body. For example, besides impairing your immune function and raising your cancer risk, interrupted or impaired sleep can also:

Increase your risk of heart disease.
Harm your brain by halting new cell production. Sleep deprivation can increase levels of corticosterone (a stress hormone), resulting in fewer new brain cells being created in your hippocampus.

Aggravate or make you more susceptible to stomach ulcers.
Contribute to a pre-diabetic state, making you feel hungry even if you've already eaten, which can wreak havoc on your weight.

Raise your blood pressure.
Contribute to premature aging by interfering with your growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep (and during certain types of exercise, such as high intensity interval training).

Worsen constipation.
Increase your risk of dying from any cause.

Furthermore, lack of sleep can further exacerbate chronic diseases such as:

Parkinsons
Alzheimers
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Gastrointestinal tract disorders
Kidney disease
Behavioral problems in children

Are Sleeping Pills a Good Option When You Can't Fall Asleep?

If you have trouble sleeping, you're not alone. According to the National Sleep Foundation's (NSF) 2010 "Sleep in America Poll," only four in 10 respondents said they got a good night's sleep every night, or almost every night, of the weekⁱⁱⁱ. But please don't make the mistake of resorting to sleeping pills. At best, they're ineffective. At worst, they can be dangerous.

According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data, over-the-counter sleep products such as Tylenol PM and Excedrin PM don't offer any significant benefit to patients. In 2007, an analysis of sleeping pill studies financed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that sleeping pills like Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata reduced the average time to go to sleep by just under 13 minutes compared with sugar pills -- hardly a major improvement.

You'd be far better off putting your money toward authentic solutions to help you sleep, like installing black-out drapes in your bedroom, than on sleeping pills, as they may actually make it more difficult for you to get a good night's rest naturally.

If anything, you could consider taking a melatonin supplement, which will help boost sleepiness.

Ideally it is best to increase your melatonin levels naturally, of course, by exposing yourself to bright sunlight in the daytime (along with full spectrum fluorescent bulbs in the winter) and complete darkness at night. If you do this regularly, you will promote proper functioning of your natural circadian rhythm, which is essential for a proper sleep cycle. However, if that isn't possible, you can consider a melatonin supplement. It's is a completely natural substance, made by your body, and has many health benefits in addition to sleep. In scientific studies, melatonin has been shown to increase sleepiness, help you fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep, decrease restlessness, and reverse daytime fatigue. I prefer to use a sublingual melatonin product because it is absorbed much faster and therefore works more quickly.

Keep in mind you typically only need a very minute amount. Taking higher doses, such as 3 mg, can sometimes have the reverse effect. So start with as little as 0.25mg or 0.5mg and play around with it to see what dosage works best for you.

How to Optimize Your Sleep

Below are several of my top guidelines for promoting good sleep. For a comprehensive sleep guide, please see my article 33 Secret's to a Good Night's Sleep.

1. Avoid watching TV or using your computer at night—or at least about an hour or so before going to bed—as these technologies can have a significantly detrimental impact on your sleep. TV and computer screens emit blue light; nearly identical to the light you're exposed to outdoors during the day. This tricks your brain into thinking it's still daytime, thereby shutting down melatonin secretion.

   Under normal circumstances, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 or 10 pm, which makes you sleepy. When this natural secretion cycle is disrupted, due to excessive light exposure after sunset, insomnia can ensue.

2. Sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible. Even the slightest bit of light in the room can disrupt your internal clock and your pineal gland's production of melatonin and serotonin. Even the tiniest glow from your clock radio could be interfering with your sleep. So close your bedroom door, and get rid of night-lights. Refrain from turning on any light at all during the night, even when getting up to go to the bathroom. Cover up your clock radio.

   Make sure to cover your windows—I recommend using blackout shades or drapes.

3. Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes and particularly their upstairs bedrooms too warm. Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees. Keeping your room cooler or hotter can lead to restless sleep. This is because when you sleep, your body's internal temperature drops to its lowest level, generally about four hours after you fall asleep. Scientists believe a cooler bedroom may therefore be most conducive to sleep, since it mimics your body's natural temperature drop.
4. Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready for sleep.
5. Check your bedroom for electro-magnetic fields (EMFs). These can disrupt your pineal gland and the production of melatonin and serotonin, and may have other negative effects as well. To do this, you need a gauss meter. You can find various models online, starting around $50 to $200. Some experts even recommend pulling your circuit breaker before bed to shut down all power in your house.
6. Move alarm clocks and other electrical devices away from your bed. If these devices must be used, keep them as far away from your bed as possible, preferably at least three feet. This serves at least two functions. First, it can be stressful to see the time when you can't fall asleep, or wake up in the middle of the night. Secondly, the glow from a clock radio can be enough to suppress melatonin production and interfere with your sleep.

   Cell phones, cordless phones and their charging stations should ideally be kept three rooms away from your bedroom to prevent harmful EMF's.

7. Avoid using loud alarm clocks. It is very stressful on your body to be suddenly jolted awake. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, an alarm may even be unnecessary.

   I gave up my alarm clock years ago and now spontaneously awake without an alarm. On those rare occasions that I do need to get up early to catch a flight, I have used a sun alarm clock. The Sun Alarm™ provides an ideal way to wake up each morning if you can't wake up with the REAL sun. Combining the features of a traditional alarm clock (digital display, AM/FM radio, beeper, snooze button, etc) with a special built-in light that gradually increases in intensity, this amazing clock simulates a natural sunrise. It also includes a sunset feature where the light fades to darkness over time, which is ideal for anyone who has trouble falling asleep.

Technorati Tags: sleep,sleeplessness,circadian rhythm,natural body clock,sleep deprivation,depression,sleep disorder,normal body functions,graveyard shift

The Night Shift Isn’t Called Graveyard for No Reason

Often the night or graveyard shift, usually 10:00PM to 6:00AM, 11:00PM to 7:00AM, or 10:00PM to 8:00AM with variations, is the entry level shift at large 24-hour companies, social service care facilities, prisons, medical facilities and for emergency service personnel and first responders.  But it is also the shift of choice, in many cases, for working students, working moms and single parents, people that work two jobs or for some who just like the perks it sometimes brings including more time off or the extra time during conventional waking or productive hours.  But this shift comes with a grave cost.

I came from 5-years at a job like this and have several friends who are still working that job and shift; some 5-days a week and some long 4-day a week shifts, but none with special time off benefits or shorter work weeks so I know the hazards first hand. It took me almost 3-years to physically get off that shift and get back to a semi-normal sleep pattern, and after 5-years, I still don’t sleep as soundly as I used to.

Another friend, Jack Reeder, has worked the same shift at a local hospital for 18-years because it allows him to work one week on and one week off and he likes the flexibility to travel and pursue his hobbies, but it still comes with a price.  He and most of my friends working these shifts are now chronic insomniacs.  According to the American Heart Association, weekly changes of sleep time affect the cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic controls in our bodies.  The sympathetic nervous system accelerates body functions, including heart rate and digestion. The parasympathetic nervous system slows down some of these systems causing what some researchers say afflicts many people who work a shift schedule – higher rates of accidents and cardiovascular disease. 

What this means is that the natural circadian, or daily, rhythms of your biological clock are constantly wrestling with your work schedule if you are required to work during the hours when your body and brain would normally be resting.  The tug-of-war happens because your circadian rhythm and your lifestyle are not in sync. Circadian rhythms are, in part, tied to the 24-hour cycle of the Earth’s rotation and the amount of daylight to which you are exposed.

According to Raffaello Furlan, MD, a professor at the University of Milan and the lead author of their sleep study, “This resistance of the body’s internal ‘clock’ to change with varied work schedules indicates that people don’t adapt as easily as we think to shift work.”  Certain processes like cell division and DNA repair happen at regular times while we sleep and are missed by shift workers.  Circadian rhythms also seem to control the amount of and time when various hormones are released in the body, such as cortisol, growth hormone, melatonin and testosterone, which control weight, energy, and reaching the ‘deep sleep’ state among many other processes.  Because the release time of these substances might not match your schedule, it can lead to health problems say Furlan and other Italian researchers.

The researchers believe that the higher rate of sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular diseases, and accidents that shift workers experience may be due to the stress that the frequent changing of sleep and awake periods place on the body’s nervous system.

Max Hirshkowitz, PhD, director of Baylor College of Medicine sleep research center in Houston, and the author of Sleep Disorders for Dummies says that the biological clock is a strong force in determining people’s sleep habits.

“These are three basic processes that govern and regulate sleep patterns – circadian rhythms, homeopathic rhythms, and anything that activates the sympathetic nervous system and can interfere with sleep”, says Hirshkowitz, “For most people, it’s more difficult to sleep during the day.  Light is a stimulant, and there is more noise during the day.”

Your biological clock tells you that the sleepiest time of the day is 4:00AM, Hirshkowitz says, yet many shift workers drink coffee around that time to stay awake. “Then they can’t go to sleep, or they sleep but wake up a short time later,” he says.  “It’s equivalent to drinking coffee after dinner.”

Shift workers also often develop destructive habits like trying to change their sleep patterns on the weekends or their days off because they want to be with their friends or families.  But according to Dr. Hirshkowitz, this is the wrong thing to do!  “It creates a cycle of sleep deprivation”, he says.  He advises that if you have to work a night shift, you should keep your sleep patterns the same on your off days, and you should protect the time slot when you’re supposed to sleep.  If you have to change shifts constantly and it involves the night shift, you should do whatever you can to protect your sleep time.  Don’t exercise within two hours of trying to sleep, but do exercise, and use blackout curtains and earplugs.  In other words, practice what Hirshkowitz calls “sleep hygiene”.  More sleep rather than “less”… which shift workers tend to get is also critical; 8 hours during the day under ‘ideal’ conditions is like 5 ½ or 6 during the night, 6 hours of day time sleep is like getting about 4 at night, and so on down the scale.  And broken sleep, a hazard of day-sleepers, is almost worse than no sleep.

Hirschkowitz says it’s easy to see these effects.  What happens if you haven’t had enough sleep?  With sleep deprivation, your balance is off; you have gastrointestinal upset, your eyes ache, and you are more prone toward colds, headaches and whatever else is going around.

Most shift workers know that they need more sleep.  Some chose not to take the step to correct their chronic sleep deprivation because of activities or because they like the extra money. Others have no choice because of family responsibilities, childcare or because it is the only option for them to afford to go to school.

The schedule is the worst for day people who naturally like to go to bed early and get up early”.  Evening or night owls do better but eventually the shift affects everyone. Night people will often say the first five years they worked this shift, they didn’t have a noticeable problem with going from night sleep to day sleep or sleeping day hours in general.  But eventually it takes its toll.  Studies show that extended graveyard shift work, can affect longevity.  It’s not called “graveyard shift” for no reason.

Studies have shown links to graveyard workers or shift change workers that include the night shift to increase breast and prostrate cancer, diabetes, weight shifts and obesity, mood swings, forgetfulness, chronic fatigue and a weakening of the immune system in general for years.  In 2007, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, added overnight shift work as a probable carcinogen, just like UV rays and diesel exhaust fumes.  It is a surprisingly positive step validating a concept once considered wacky or at least improbable.. And, it is based on research that finds higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men whose work day starts after dark.   

Many companies and organizations in the U.S. and worldwide have begun to recognize the sacrifice of night shift workers and have compensated them for their sacrifices, as well as trying to cut-down the related increases in their accident and sickness ratios with shorter shifts for 40-hours pay, shorter work weeks, and non-traditional rotations including flextime and the options of part-time and job-share types of positions. Graveyard workers are generally compensated with 10% higher wages than their day-worker counterparts. They are also often compensated with additional sick or compensatory time or allowed extra time off without pay, but also without attendance penalties. Perks like areas for naptime on break or between shifts or recreational facilities are also common. In New York, some companies are supplying sleep capsules for 20-minute naps for both shift workers and day workers in high stress positions. New studies suggest the use of ‘light boxes’ in a special area where shift workers work or in the break room will make them sharper. Workers who do not have physically or mentally challenging positions or are in an observation capacity with lots of sitting should always work with a partner and be allowed access to television, radio, a computer or something that interests them to keep them alert, between or after their duties are done. Eating healthy foods rather than excessive amounts of caffeine and sugar is advised and wearing sunglasses in the morning, from sunrise until bedtime to cut out a lot of the blue light which tells the body that it is morning, is also helpful.

Let us hope that these and additional balancing measures will become common knowledge, uniform in practice and mandatory before more people end up far too young in the graveyard for which their shift is nicknamed.

By: Marion Algier – Ask Marion 

Related Articles:

• Computer Vision Syndrome