Private sleep? What is lacking in too much sleep could hurt your body – National

It's the middle of the night and you're fixing the ceiling.

Slowly, so slowly, the minutes scroll. You feel eternal before going back to sleep – just in time for your alarm clock to ring.

If it sounds familiar, you are not alone. According to a December 2018 report from Statistics Canada, nearly one-quarter of Canadians reported experiencing insomnia symptoms and about one-third slept less than the recommended seven or eight hours.

This can have profound consequences on your health that go beyond just feeling tired, grumpy and slow the next morning.

More and more research is pointing to the long-term consequences of poor or poor sleep, suggesting that it is linked to poor cardiovascular and mental health, metabolic disorders and perhaps even conditions such as Madness.

Sleep is important for health, said Charles Morin, Canada Research Chair in Sleep Disorders at Laval University and President of the World Sleep Society. "This is one of the three pillars of sustainable health."

"Sleep is just as important as eating well or exercising."

While we are asleep, our bodies are always busy taking care of things they do not do when we are awake. An example cited by Morin is the production of hormones.

"At night, we produce a number of hormones, including leptin. Leptin is a hormone that controls appetite. Therefore, if we only sleep four or five hours a night, we produce less, so we are more likely to become overweight and eat more, "he said.

Likewise, sleeping too much or too little is badociated with changes in the way our body reacts to glucose and a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

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When we sleep, our blood pressure also decreases when we wake up. Sleep disorders, such as insomnia or sleep apnea – a breathing disorder – can interrupt this rhythm. "It's like the heart is working overtime and it could predispose these people to a higher risk of hypertension," said Morin.

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A 2015 statement from the American Heart Association found that a short sleep period was badociated with a higher risk of hypertension and coronary heart disease, and recommended public health campaigns to increase awareness of the importance of heart disease. 'a good night's sleep.

Sleep also affects your mental health. In a 2016 meta-badysis, insomnia was badociated with a higher risk of depression, although the link could go both ways: depressed people often have difficulty sleeping and these disorders could increase risk of depression. Treating sleep disorders along with depression can improve outcomes in both cases, Morin said.

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Sleep can even affect how your brain works. Currently, an Ontario study is examining even a possible badociation between sleep and brain health, as well as other health issues. The Ontario Sleep Health Study, which has examined approximately 2,800 people to date, hopes to release some results later this year, focusing on signs of dementia.

"What interests us is to take a look at the people in the middle of life and to try to know if we start to observe early changes in MRI and cognitive functions that may cause dementia in a population working age, "said the principal investigator of the study, Dr. Andrew Lim of Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital.

During sleep, he says, the brain eliminates toxins. "There is a mechanism by which waste generated by neurons and other brain cells accumulates during the day. When you sleep, they are literally evacuated from the brain. "

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In a 2017 article, the researchers found that several studies link sleep deprivation with increased accumulation of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain, which is thought to be a key factor in the development of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer.

Although clinical trials have not yet proven that sleep deprivation is the cause of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, Lim said, "I think the data shows that this could be a potential consequence of sleep disturbance ".

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The sleeping brain can also play an important role in learning and memory, he said. "When you're awake, learning new things, remembering new things, and experiencing new experiences, you make new connections between the neurons in your brain, called synapses."

"What happens is that if you continue to build new synapses, over time, your brain would simply be overloaded with new synapses, many of which are not necessarily important." During sleep, the brain strengthens synapses that are most important for learning and badimilating the least important, leaving room for new connections the next day. "This process critically depends on sleep, making it an important mediator of learning. "

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Although trials showing this have so far been mostly done on mice (it's much harder to examine synapses when you can not do an autopsy of the brain), Lim thinks that he's clear that lack of sleep makes learning more difficult. If you treat a person's sleep apnea, for example, "you can immediately see obvious changes in cognitive performance."

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The result of all this? We need to make sleep a priority, says Morin. "Chronic insomnia generates very significant costs in the work environment and in personal life, in terms of fatigue, loss of energy and even mood disorders."

If your poor sleep lasts more than a few nights a week for a few weeks and has an impact on your daytime functioning, you should contact a health care provider, he said.

"People have to make their sleep a priority," he said.

"We have to get ready for a good night's sleep, as we do when we travel. We prepare our trip in advance. We must do the same thing when we sleep. "

Although the amount of sleep needed varies from one person to another, experts usually recommend about 7.5 to eight hours of sleep a night, with some rare people needing as little as six at nine o'clock. If you feel tired after a night's sleep, try to sleep longer until you find what suits you, according to the Canadian Sleep Society.

If you have persistent difficulties sleeping or do not sleep, you will feel well rested, consult a health professional because sleeping is important for your overall health.

"I think we take that for granted until we have problems with that," Morin said.