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Alexa Fleckenstein M.D.

Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.

Sleepless - And Unrepaired?

April 20, 2010
Tags: order, balance, cancer prevention, cell repair, cortisol, DNA repair, Dreams, insomnia, obesity, stress, repair, sleep before midnight, Sleepless - And Unrepaired?, sleeplessness, weight
Can’t fall asleep? Toss and turn? Wake up at three and never be able to get some more winks? Research about circadian rhythms has borne out what our grandmother’s told us: Sleep before midnight matters. The major repair work in the body happens from around eleven pm to one am. Repair means: Mending muscles, replacing worn-out cells, rewiring brain connections, restoring broken DNA before cancer can develop. That repair will not happen if you are not in bed, not asleep. Try basic sleep hygiene: • Go to bed latest at ten. It helps to read some books – uplifting books rather than thrillers. But whatever works for you. • Do not eat after dinner – preferably not after six pm. Because, if your body has to digest your stomach contents, it has less time for repair. • No stimulants after noon (coffee, tea, coke, chocolate, etc.). • Sleep with window open (if your neighborhood is not too noisy). Indoor pollution is usually worse than outdoor pollution, and you don’t want to re-breathe you own spent air all night. Second thought: If we don't get enough sleep, we are stressed out the next day. Fact is that the quality of every day of your life is decided the evening before: Did you get to bed in time? Stress elevates cortisol in our body, and high cortisol makes us ravenously hungry. The stress hormone cortisol links poor sleep and obesity. Last thought: When we were still living in caves, in the darkness, without electricity, we would be confined to our communal sleeping on and under bear skins for about twelve hours a night. Obviously, nobody can sleep that long. So, we woke up after four hours and had a little sex (took about five minutes). Then we would lie awake a while. Toward morning, we would sleep another four hours. Question: What did we do during those unused three hours fifty-five minutes? We would think. Think a bout the meaning of the lingering dream that the Gods had sent. What did they want us to learn from this dream? Nowadays we want to sleep effectively: eight hours per night, without waste of time. But something got lost along the line: The reflecting. Next time, you can’t sleep, think about what is good in your life, and how you can do better. Remember what you wanted your life to be when you were a kid. Dare to dream!
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