I haven’t written a blog for over a month. I just finished 5 weeks of intense work responding to a significant health care proposal that has the potential of transforming the way Canadian citizens manage their health and the health of their loved ones by providing electronic access to their personal health record. I’ve previously written about the importance of knowing your “Key Health Indicators”; and the technology we proposed allows individuals to track key health indicators, much like your online access to personal financial information.
A team of approximately 30 business professionals worked day and night for the five weeks, receiving approximately 3 to 5 hours of sleep a day, including weekends. Some of the team members got sick, others saw their energy levels decline, and all of us had to work extra hard to concentrate, maintain our focus and pay attention to detail. In part, these symptoms were compounded by poor eating, lack of regular exercise and since all this was taking place over the Holiday Season, there was the added stress of knowing we were missing important time with our families and friends.
During this time, I did my best to maintain certain elements of healthy eating, for example, I ensured to take my daily essential vitamins, minerals and high antioxidants found in Youth Juice, and encouraged the people that ordered our food from the caterers to bring in fruit, raw vegetables and healthy salads. I also resisted the temptation to eat pizza that was brought in during the many late night working sessions. After long days of work and even though I was living in hotels, I still managed to exercise daily. I found that the exercise reenergized my body and mind. That said, I was certainly not operating at 100% efficiency, as I was sleep deprived, and my body’s natural rhythms were significantly interrupted, which brings me to the topic of this blog post....
Because of the lack of sleep, non-stop exposure to office lighting while staring into a laptop computer for close to 15 to 20 hours a day for 5 weeks straight, I found it challenging to maintain my typical high energy and positive mood. There's growing concern among experts that computers and other electronic devices may fool our brains into thinking that it's still daytime long after the sun has gone down. Exposure during the night can disturb sleep patterns and exacerbate insomnia. Such concerns are not new -- Thomas Edison may have created these problems when he invented the light bulb. But the problem has grown worse thanks to computers and the popularity of devices like Apple's new slate computer, the iPad. In fact, according to CNN:
"Laptops and iPad’s are more likely to disrupt sleep patterns than, say, a television sitting across the bedroom or a lamp that illuminates a paper book, both of which shoot far less light straight into the eye, researchers said."
Everything in nature has a rhythm, and that includes your body. It strives to keep its 24-hour cycle, or Circadian Rhythm. This is why most of us naturally feel like waking when the sun comes up, and sleeping when it's dark. Researchers have also shown how your Circadian Rhythm is involved in everything from sleep, to weight gain, mood disorders, and a variety of diseases. Unfortunately, modern life, (like having to work solid for 5 weeks on a client proposal, or working the night shift) throws a wrench into your body’s natural cycles.
Glowing Gadgets Fool Your Brain and Disrupts Your Circadian Rhythm: When light receptors in your eyes are triggered, they signal your brain to 'stay awake.' To do this, your brain stops secreting melatonin, which is both a hormone and a potent antioxidant against cancer. Hence the significant importance sleep plays as one of your key lifestyle choices that requires little to no effort. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin around 9 or 10 pm, which makes you sleepy. These regularly occurring secretions thus help regulate your sleep cycle. However, if you regularly trick your brain into altering this cycle, sleep disturbances are not far behind. Because of our exposure to a growing number of electronic devices, many people in North America are now living in a permanent state of “jet lag” or “sleep deprivation”. Computer screens and most light bulbs emit blue light, to which your eyes are particularly sensitive simply because it's the type of light most common outdoors during daytime hours. As a result, they can disrupt your melatonin production.
Your Circadian Rhythm is Closely Tied to Your Overall Health: Your Circadian Rhythm has evolved slightly over the past few decades to align our physiology with our environment. However, decades are a mere blink of an eye relative to the millions of years humans have been roaming this planet and we still basically operate under the assumption that we're still behaving as our ancient ancestors have for thousands of generations before us: sleeping at night and being awake during the day. If you push these limits by staying up late at night, depriving yourself of sleep, like I did for the past five weeks, or eating at strange hours, like 2:00am, also like I did, you are sending conflicting signals to your body. As a result, your body doesn't know whether it should be producing chemicals to tell you to go to sleep, or gear up for the beginning of your day.
Maintaining this natural Circadian Rhythm affects far more than just your sleep pattern. 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. Your body temperature and hormone production also vary with your personal internal clock. This, in turn, influences such things as:
- The easiest time to detect disease in your body
- The times when you'll be less sensitive to pain
- The times when you'll be most productive at work (I personally know it’s not at 2:00am after receiving 4 hours sleep day in and day out for weeks)
Disrupting your natural rhythm can also make you more vulnerable to disease. For example, reduced melatonin levels, due to prolonged exposure to artificial light, is known to increase your risk of cancer (researchers have found that totally blind women have a 36% lower risk of breast cancer compared with sighted women, due to the increased levels of melatonin). It also activates your stress response and weakens your immune system, hence the number of people working on our proposal team that got sick, or very close to it, which is why irregular sleep cycles can lead to stress, constipation, stomach ulcers, depression, heart disease, and other illnesses.
So do as I SAY, not as I DO. Keeping Your Body Clock Running Smoothly: This is a lifestyle choice I have to improve myself, as I tend to stay up too late working. Following these guidelines can help keep your Circadian Rhythm in its natural cycle:
- Use full-spectrum light bulbs in your home and office during daytime hours.
- Turn off computers and electronic gadgets once the sun sets (as best you can), and avoid watching TV late into the night. The blue light emitted from TV's and computer screens mimic the blue light found in daytime sunlight, which can alter your melatonin production.
- Use "low blue lights" in areas where you spend most of your time in late evening, such as your living room, bedroom, and bathroom.
- Sleep in total darkness! If there is even the tiniest bit of light in your room it can disrupt your Circadian Rhythm and your body’s production of the hormones melatonin and serotonin. This is the "hidden" secret that most people tend to ignore, but which can dramatically improve the quality of your sleep.
- Sleep when it's dark outside and get up when the sun comes up. At minimum, strive to sleep between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. This means you should be in bed, with the lights out, by 10 p.m. and be up by 6 a.m.
- Avoid working long crazy hours. There are always times when you’re asked to work long hours to meet aggressive timelines, but ensure these are the exceptions and not the norm. You’re not doing anyone any good by working in front of a computer screen well past midnight and into the early hours of the day. Not only are you working well below your potential, you may be heading toward a very long premature and permanent sleep.
If you're even slightly sleep deprived I encourage you to implement some of these tips I’ve mention above tonight, as high-quality sleep is one of the most important factors in your health and quality of life. I’m starting this tomorrow, because it’s 2:15am as I’m writing this.
Good night and Enjoy the Ride ….. Rob
Sleep and rest are essential components of a healthy lifestyle. Continuous lack of sleep can lower our resistance.
Posted by: sleep | 10/26/2011 at 10:54 PM
Thank for the great work! I agree with you. Iron mineral serves to promote the proper functioning of the immune system, particularly in the production of white blood cells.
Posted by: Minerals Iron | 10/12/2011 at 02:50 AM