MEN ASLEEP: HOW REAL SLEEP KEEPS YOU THIN AND POTENT
Benjamin Franklin was wrong. His famous maxim that ‘early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’ has no basis in fact.
While it might give early risers a sense of moral superiority, it gives them no practical advantage over those who rise late.
When epidemiologists in the UK tested the accuracy of this maxim on 1200 people, they looked at sleeping patterns and classified people as larks and owls. Those who were in bed before 11 p.m. and up before 8 a.m. were larks, while those who fell into bed after 11 p.m. and rose after 8 a.m. were owls. In terms of health, wealth and cognitive performance, the owls were no worse off than the larks.
What makes a critical difference is the quality and quantity of sleep larks and owls enjoy.
Restful sleep unbroken by heavy snoring, episodes of sleep apnoea or other nocturnal disorders can work miracles. It rests the body and allows muscles to recover from constant use during the day. It allows the metabolism to slow and the immune system to repair damage and fight infection. Sleep also triggers the secretion of growth hormone. During a good stretch, testosterone production rises too.
When sleep is fragmented and truncated over long periods, growth hormone secretion is affected. There is an established link between this hormone and obesity: as growth hormone decreases with broken sleep, the chances of gaining weight increase.
Bad sleep also affects testosterone levels. Army recruits who were deprived of sleep for an experiment displayed a marked drop in testosterone. Testosterone is an important factor in male libido. Men with low levels of this hormone have little interest in sex. They have even less interest if they are also tired and grumpy.
The genuine value of sleep can be seen clearly in the consequences of sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation is a well-known form of human torture. It breaks people mentally and then it breaks them physically. I deprived of sleep, animals develop skin rashes and immune problems, lose weight and are unable to control their body temperature. Ultimately, it can lead to premature death: rats, for example, will die after 40 days of severe sleep deprivation.
It would be unethical to subject humans to long-term sleep I deprivation in order to study its consequences, but shorter studies have shown that the first effects on humans of sleep deprivation are psychological. Initially, people become irritable. Later, they start displaying cognitive impairment and their executive and higher-order functions deteriorate. Next their memory slips, their visual-spatial perception is affected and they begin taking more risks and making more mistakes than usual.
Biologically, their ability to control their blood-sugar level is compromised and their sensitivity to insulin increases. Immune function, blood pressure and heart disease can also be adversely affected by lack of sleep.
Snoring disrupts sleep and increases men’s risk of heart attacks, and sleep apnoea intensifies this risk. Severe apnoea, which causes sleepers to stop breathing for a few seconds repeatedly throughout the night, can put extreme stress on the heart. Men who stop breathing between ten and fourteen times an hour during sleep have a risk of heart disease more than four times higher than that of the general population.
There is increasing evidence that sleep apnoea is linked to hypertension and an increased loss in brain cells, resulting in early senility.
Men suffering sleep apnoea may wake with a headache or feeling as if they had too much to drink the night before. As the day progresses they feel sleepy, can’t concentrate, yawn a lot and have difficulty finishing sentences. There are treatments for apnoea (mentioned in the section ‘Quieter Sleep’ on p. 23), just as there are things you can do yourself to improve your chances of getting better sleep.
Go to bed and get up at regular times.
Maintain sleep hygiene by ensuring you have a comfortable bed and a dark, quiet room that is the right temperature.
Create calm: avoid conflict before sleep, and don’t work or watch TV in bed.
Avoid things that interfere with sleep, such as evening caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and rich foods.
Watch your liquid intake before bed: a full bladder will wake you.
Exercise (but not strenuously) late in the evening: taking a
gentle walk 1 or 2 hours before bedtime can be productive.
Establish a bedtime routine: help yourself to get into the mood for sleep by bathing, brushing your teeth, setting the alarm etc.
Men who struggle to fall asleep and who walk the floors at night should be aware that eventually they will collapse into sleep. The human drive for sleep is so strong that it is impossible to keep a person fully awake and alert for more than 3 or 4 days.
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