Sleep Found To Replenish a Type of Brain Cell 136
New submitter wrackspurt writes "Sleep deprivation has long been thought to be prevalent in the industrialized world. A new study (abstract) explains one very good reason why at least seven hours of sleep a night is necessary. Quoting the BBC: 'Sleep ramps up the production of cells that go on to make an insulating material known as myelin which protects our brain's circuitry. ... The increase was most marked during the type of sleep that is associated with dreaming - REM or rapid eye movement sleep — and was driven by genes. In contrast, the genes involved in cell death and stress responses were turned on when the mice were forced to stay awake.'"
apnea (Score:5, Informative)
I'd been living with sleep apnea for years, but didn't realize it. I just thought that getting up to pee 3 or 4 times in a night was normal for a 42 year old... Turns out it's not. It was my body's way of trying to figure out why it was awake and concluding it must be because my bladder was full. I did a sleep study and found that I would stop breathing 260 times in the first 3 hours of sleep after which time I started waking up and that was the end of the study... I was fitted with a sleep apnea dental appliance (the TAP3 device) and the first night I slept through the entire night for the first time in years... My wife kept waking up to make sure I was still breathing because I wasn't snoring or making any noise at all. After some adjustment, I can say I sleep like a baby now... I spent a lot of money on matresses and pillows before, thinking it was the bed's fault...
The way the dental appliance works is by extending your lower jaw (as though you have a terrible underbite) which opens up your airway.
Very occasionally, I will forget it when I go somewhere for an overnight, and I sleep like shit those nights... I wake up multiple times, have a sore throat in the morning (from snoring loudly), have no energy, and no motivation.
I've had it for 2.5 years now and can't imagine life without it. I also can't imagine life with a CPAP machine though I hear they work great for some people.