> “Although the study found inadequate sleep duration was not an issue in brain atrophy in this study, we cannot say there is no association,” she said, noting that a previous CARDIA study showed that shorter sleep was associated with worse white matter integrity, indicating lower cognitive functioning.
That quote seems to directly contradict the headline.
From the public results only[1] (I don't have a copy of the whole study) they studied the following things looking for correlation with brain decline:
* short sleep duration
* sleep quality
* difficulty initiating sleep (DIS)
* difficulty maintaining sleep (DMS)
* early morning awakening (EMA)
* daytime sleepiness
They only found that the middle four were correlated. I don't know what exactly "sleep quality" is but the others are pretty easy to understand. And the point is that the duration of a person's sleep is not what mattered, it was the quality.
Also, worth saying: these things were based on self-reported data, which is basically crap.
>To estimate the effects of sleep quality on the brain, the researchers surveyed approximately 600 adults on how well they slept. The participants were asked the same questions five years later and underwent brain scans 10 years after this.
This is press-release science. Maybe the latter three things you can remember, but I have sensors and whatnot in a fancypants mattress (i.e. I'm highly motivated to know), and my subjective opinion of my prior night's sleep is pretty uncorrelated with what they say. I couldn't begin to tell you the quality of my sleep from a week ago.
Sleep quality, if excluding DIS, DMS, EMA, usually will refer to things like apneas, nasal congestion, digestion, noise or light in the room, etc. Disturbances that don't wake the person but do tax the brain.
I would describe low sleep quality as "difficulty entering or maintaining the restorative phases of sleep." It's the thing a sleep clinic measures with an EEG.
I'm approaching midlife and noticing the quality of my sleep has declined. I can't sleep in anymore. Sometimes I'm waking up in the middle of the night occasionally and something I'm wide awake because I'm thinking about work or something like that. Very frustrating.
Another reminder to try to pull myself away from the screens late at night.
I've also found it's hard to sleep in, I recommend going to sleep sooner. It's like I'm hardwired to wake up at a certain time, the only thing I can control is when I go to bed.
Yeah, same here. I'll wake up at noon, no matter what time I go to bed. If I go to bed at 2, I'll have ten hours of sleep, if at 6... You get the idea.
Now all I need is to have fewer interesting hobbies and builds at night.
My god, this is not only exactly what I've done for years, but you described it in exactly the same way I describe it when telling people about it, almost word for word.
1 mg sublingual (dissolve under the tongue) melatonin works for me. I find it works best if I wait until I'm well settled in and should be asleep, but aren't. That's the time to quietly pop the tablet so it nudges me over the edge.
Biggest problem is that 1mg sublingual is hard to find. Walgreens/CVS is excited to sell you 5, 10 even 20 mg pills and gummies. But, those are so strong they are counter-productive.
I started exercising (a lot) in the year and found that has helped me fall asleep faster. It doesn't have to be a whole lot either. 30 minutes of jogging or fast walking is enough to do it for me.
I definitely feel it on days where I sit and do nothing. I have a harder time falling asleep.
I find a light exercise for extended duration of time right before sleep helps my sleep the best. The key for me seems not doing anything stressful right before sleep after the exercise, and drinking plenty of water but not food/sugar. I wonder blood sugar level is associated with some of the sleep problems.
I noticed that too, but assumed it is a natural part of the body being in stasis and no longer growing/developing. I definitely remember being most tired during teenage years and other phases when the body was changing. You and others seem to imply that it has to be with increased stress, and maybe so, but I would like to see data on other cultures. Does someone who has been farming since age 17 have the same sleep patterns in middle age?
ahh the old 3am ruminating toss and turn never fails to put me back asleep a half hour before my alarm goes off and mostly never closer to solving the problem at hand
I thought work stress kept me awake at night, but it was sleep apnea. I had a device that propels the lower jaw forward, to clear the throat, it stopped apnea but moved my teeth, but I then was brave enough to lose ~5kg (sleeping more makes you brave), and now I don’t need the jaw device.
Have you tried afternoon naps to compensate? I remember reading this theory a while back that we sort of naturally switch to a different sleeping cycle over the course of our lives, where older people tend to stay awake at night and sleep during the day as a sort of evolved way to split shifts for camp defence during the tribal era. No idea if there's any solid data to back it up though.
My issue is I seem somehow wired to wake up early. I sleep better when I go to bed earlier. Screen use seems to have nearly no impact on my sleep, and what has the most impact is the type of screen usage (i.e. reading news, books & watching film is fine, but instagram/tiktok before bed tends to lead to worse sleep for me).
I sometimes wonder what damage 20 years of undiagnosed sleep apnea has caused. My sleep report showed 50 incidents of breathing issue per hour on average. I finally got a CPAP and it has literally made a world of difference to my life.
Now I hear my toddler snore and hope that he doesn’t have it. At least, I can intervene early.
I just got one. It is silent according to my wife. It is kind of loud for me because it is blowing air into my nose which makes noise inside my head. But I like white noise - helps with the tinnitus.
With the mask on, it’s like having a white noise machine at a volume of 3-4. My wife wasn’t getting enough sleep because of my snoring, so this white noise isn’t bothering her at all.
I went with the doctor prescribed one, through insurance and have a Resmed Airsense 11. Did not explore second hand and I don’t think you can buy one without a prescription. I Change the mask every 3-4 months, but you can extend it as long as you wash it every 3-4 days.
When I am 86kg, I have quite heavy sleep apnea. When I am 83kg, I don’t. Everyone has different possible actions, because for some it is due to the shape of the nose cartilage, for others it’s the throat, but discovering that made a world of difference.
I wake up in the morning and I’m awake. And courageous. It’s incredible.
Lucky you. I had textbook symptoms of sleep apnea four years ago with a BMI of 19.
Due to COVID I could not get tested until my BMI was 23.5. The air pressure I was prescribed was ludicrously wrong and after a couple of years of tweaking it I'm still not sleeping great, but it's a massive improvement over receiving no therapy.
You know what the best way to stop sleeping well is? Read about all the things that poor sleep does to you. Especially when the quality of the research is as shaky as this link.
Matthew Walker, author of Wy We Sleep agrees with you. He has a page where he addresses some common reader concerns and criticisms and anxiety around quantity and quality of sleep is something he acknowledges:
I experienced severe insomnia for awhile due to stress illness, and some stuff from The Sleep Coach School helped quite a bit. I'm doing well now, but I get a bit facepalmy when I see healthy people go looking for things to worry about.
I was at a conference last week, and for the first time heard about a study that suggested that the cycle is that a build up of amyloid, tau, lew bodies, and other metabolic waste in the brain reduces the slow-wave power which is responsible for clearing out this metabolic waste (via the glymphatic system).
This cycle is still not proven, but it was an interesting early hypothosis.
We've been developing slow-wave enhancement technology for the last 4 years which increases slow-wave activity, and the first 3 studies in Alzheimer's and MCI are now published. These are early studies with lots left to go.
There must be a nuanced distinction b/w short sleep duration and the other sleep quality metrics since nearly all of them likely cause short sleep duration as a side effect. I wonder how the researchers disentangled this.
My only hope is that now that we seemingly have a cure for obesity, as the population greys the next common non-cancer/heart disease ailment to tackle are brain issues that set in during old age. Maybe they'll have a pill that gets rid of all of the plaque or proteins or prions or whatever that sleep is for.
That quote seems to directly contradict the headline.
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