
Brain may flush out toxins during sleep (2015) - prostoalex
http://qz.com/424120/our-poor-sleeping-habits-could-be-filling-our-brains-with-neurotoxins
======
clumsysmurf
Related, there is the possibility that posture during sleep may impact the
efficiency of the glymphatic system

Paper:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524974/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524974/)

Press release:
[http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/news/general/150804sleeping.php](http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/news/general/150804sleeping.php)

~~~
SmallBets
Thanks for this. Tldr is sleeping on your side may be best for toxin draining.

~~~
dionidium
I don't see the word "toxin" anywhere on that page.

~~~
emptybits
You're right. I guess the connection being reached for is "lymphatic
transport" (title of paper) -> "waste transport" (synonymous) -> "toxin
removal" (a very specific type of waste transport?)

~~~
James001
The lymphatic system is specifically for removing toxins, so naturally it's
function is implied

~~~
Udik
No, a toxin is a poison, usually produced for predation or defense. As
Wikipedia correctly notes,

 _In the context of quack and alternative medicine the term "toxin" is used to
refer to any substance supposed to cause ill health._

What the body produces and might need to eliminate is metabolic byproduct or
waste, nothing to do with "toxins". The term used in this context makes me
cringe.

~~~
James001
what...? Do you not know any biology at all? Of course the lymphatic system is
meant to eliminate toxins... Jeez, take some bio 101 before posting, you sound
like a quack

~~~
Nadya
They are taking issue with the term "toxin" \- not the functionality of the
lymphatic system. Their comment explicitly said `metabolic byproduct or waste,
nothing to do with "toxins"`.

~~~
James001
But of course it the lymphatic system eliminates toxins too. I mean, obviously
this is all getting into semantics, but the lymphatic system helps to
eliminate more than just metabolic products and waste, it will also help
eliminate dead bacteria, heavy metals, etc, which could certainly be called
toxins

------
singold
"warns that sleeping next to your smartphone—the one that emits 3G and 4G
signals all night—affects your brain patterns, restructuring your brain cells
and likely preventing you from allowing your brain to clean out waste material
properly."

Does anyone have any kind of evidence/study of this kind of effects?

~~~
jusssi
Emits signals all night is quite an exaggeration. Unless the phone is actively
transmitting or receiving something, it only checks in with the network every
once in a while.

I'm not sure about exact times in 3g/4g, but 2g (GSM at least) phones caused
audible interference with poorly shielded audio equipment when they were
transmitting. I recall an otherwise idle phone only checking in once an hour
or so, though the interval was/is probably defined by the network, so that
maybe different at different locations. Still, for power saving reasons, I
expect an idle phone to just sit quiet most of the time.

~~~
mysterypie
> an otherwise idle phone only checking in once an hour or so

The phone network has to know which cell tower you're nearby in order to send
a call to you. If you're driving, you could get far away from your original
cell tower in one hour.

If your phone hasn't checked in for an hour and you've traveled a great
distance in that hour, how does the phone network know where to send the
incoming call for you?

I can think of only two solutions: Either your phone checks in much more
frequently than once an hour, or the network tries pinging you on wider and
wider concentric circles of cell towers in order to locate you. Which is it?
(Or something else?)

~~~
xenadu02
The phone itself wakes up and listens for the base; if it finds it (and the ID
matches) then it goes back to sleep. No need to transmit. If the ID doesn't
match, it pings the new base to register and the network will inform the old
base to drop that client. If it doesn't find the base at all it initiates a
longer scan to find active bases on other frequencies. Once it finds the best
one it has to re-negotiate and auth before the base will start accepting
traffic on behalf of that client. Handoff bypasses the delays by having one
base communicate to another to bypass the negotiations and the backhaul
network automatically re-routes packets when this happens. The clients also
get info about neighboring cells and towers which makes handoff easier and
faster. As the baseband wakes up in its lowest power mode every minute or two
it senses its connected base signal getting weaker while simultaneously one of
its neighboring signals getting stronger and during one of these wake sessions
it will elect to power up, transmit, and hand-off. Then it can go back into
low-power monitoring mode until the next boundary. (This is an extremely
abbreviated description of a complex process.)

The minimum ping time (let's say it is one hour) is just so the base can prune
its client list.

When an SMS or call comes in the network doesn't broadcast that to all cells
in the country. It knows where your device was last registered and sends it
there even. If the base doesn't get an acknowledgement after a timeout period
the SMS is dropped / the caller gets voicemail. If your device isn't near that
location it should have handed-off on its own which means it is probably
turned off or in an area with no signal.

As far as I know none of the current generation of cell systems bother to
broadcast SMS, phone, or data packets to a wider area near your last known
location.

------
cpncrunch
Margaret Thatcher famously survived on 4 hours sleep a night, and later
developed dementia. I wonder if any longitudinal studies have been done on
this (I had a quick look and couldn't find any).

------
ianai
As a migraine sufferer I feel like I can confirm this, anecdotally. Often when
I fight a migraine off midday it takes at least a 10 min nap to get back to
somewhat normal feeling. I don't know how to describe what that nap can feel
like. It feels a lot different than any other sort of sleep. Like the mental
equivalent of standing on the top of a train that's descending down into a
deep cavern and then back up to the light.

------
Mz
Walking (or other activity) promotes rapid movement of lymph out of the
tissues, by several times the normal resting rate. It is powered by the muscle
system. Anecdotally: After walking, I sleep more deeply (in a manner that I
think has to do with moving lymph out of the brain). I suspect that moving
lymph to clean other tissues in the body helps the brain move more lymph when
it sleeps.

~~~
ch4s3
Any papers you can link to about this?

~~~
Mz
Study on muscle action and lymph flow that indicates this is well established
in multiple studies and indicates 3-6 x faster clearance with activity, though
I have seen higher numbers elsewhere and, to my surprise, cannot readily
locate that info at the momemt:

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7793.1997....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7793.1997.233bf.x/full)

I am unaware of any papers on the piece I described as _anecdotal_ and _my
opinion_. Though a quick Google gets me this piece that claims it is by an MD
and, among other things, talks about exercise and brain health:

[http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/the-five-secrets-of-brain-
health](http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/the-five-secrets-of-brain-health)

------
sundvor
I for one would like to know if meditation would serve to flush toxins as
well, and if so, to what extent.

I often struggle to get more than 6 hours of sleep, but have started doing TM
a few weeks ago with two twenty minute sessions (not always getting both in..)
- and am finding it helpful. This is knowing / having been told that
meditation is not a substitute for sleep.

~~~
kev009
Sounds very unlikely, if someone interrupted your meditation would you feel
groggy like interrupted sleep? I believe meditation is mostly psychological,
while sleep is physiological.

~~~
sundvor
That depends on the meditation - it's never quite the same, really varies a
lot. Now, I've taken to doing a lunch time meditation in the tinted back seat
of my car (secure carpark) and some times I've actually nodded off for a
fraction of second or two - or who knows how long.

At any rate if I was disturbed between the 10 and 20 minute mark when I
typically start to settle into it I'd feel a bit rattled. You're meant to
spend a minute or two getting back, slowly stretching out and opening the
eyes. Always feel a bit sleepy, but then also strangely refreshed.

As a programmer I do find slowing the "mind storm" rather beneficial.
Definitely feeling less frazzled.

------
kahrkunne
Well shame I'm sitting here reading HN at 5:30 while debugging computer
problems

------
dang
We briefly changed the URL to [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-
releases/brain-may-flus...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-
releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep), which this article points
to, but changed it back because this article contains more background info. We
kept the less baity title, though.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Yes, the old article was actually already posted here.

