Scientists say, “Deep Sleep Clears Toxins From the Brain.”
We spend one-third of our lives sleeping. Why? While modern science is yet to figure that out, a recent study revealed that deep sleep cleanses our brains. It flushes out waste and harmful toxin proteins such as beta-amyloid from our brain tissue. It helps to store memories and might reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers found that the large wave of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a clear water-like liquid, flows in and out of the brain every 20 seconds during sleep. This process helps to remove waste from our brains. The inward flow is influenced by slow-wave patterns of electrical activity known as delta waves.
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Understanding the Science Behind Deep Sleep and Deep Cleaning of Brain
Laura Lewis and her team at Boston University, Massachusetts, published a journal in science explaining how our system clears out harmful toxins from our brain tissues while we are in a deep sleep. Let’s first understand the different stages of our sleep cycle. In general, they are divided into 3 phases.
Stages of Sleep Cycle
Broadly the following are the different sleep cycles that one experiences. In general, these are divided into three distinct parts. They include:
Stage 1: Light Sleep (non-REM)
In this stage, your brain has dipped into sleep, yet you can hear things and have an awareness of what’s happening around you. Your muscles relax, heart rate, and body temperature drops, sleep beings, but waking up is easier.
Stage 2: Deep Sleep (non-REM)
In this stage, your body becomes less responsive to outside events. The body goes through a restoring and repairing phase, as our brain wave becomes even slower and waking is difficult. This stage increases blood flow to muscles, growth hormones are secreted, and cells are repaired.
Stage 3: REM Sleep
Rapid eye movement (REM) is a stage when our eyes move fast from side to side behind closed eyelids, and brain activity paralyzes our arms and legs muscles for a short period. Most dreams occur during this stage. However, you do not act because the muscles are paralyzed.
Result of Deep Sleep and Deep Cleaning of Brain Study
Laura’s study revolved around the deep sleep (non-REM) stage that typically occurs earlier in the night. A study in 2013 conducted on mice suggested that sleep helped restore the brain by flushing out toxins that got built during the waking hours. Laura invited 13 human participants aged between 22-33 to understand how exactly the toxins were cleared and why only during sleep.
The test was done during midnight, and participants were asked to fall asleep under an MRI machine. Through the ECG cap, the team was able to look at the electrical current flowing patterns in their brains. The researchers measured the blood oxygen level and CSF flow that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. They found that a large wave of CSF flows in and out of the brain every 20 seconds that removes waste out of brain tissues.
Laura said – “It’s such a dramatic effect. Cerebrospinal fluid pulsating in the brain during sleep was something we didn’t know happened at all, and now we can just glance at one brain region and immediately have a readout of the brain state someone’s in.”
Further Highlights on the Study
The findings also highlighted the underlying mechanisms of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, led mainly by toxin proteins such as amyloid-Beta.
We know that people with Alzheimer’s have fewer slow waves, so we may find they also have fewer CSF waves, she added. The team also plans to do these studies in older adults and patient populations to understand other dynamics of those disorders.
She also believes, “Sleep disturbance is also a feature of many psychiatric disorders, from depression to schizophrenia. Different electrical signatures of sleep are disrupted in different psychiatric conditions. So this will be very interesting to follow up on in a multitude of disorders.”
The study basically explains the deeper the sleep, the better it is. And sleep deprivation can be dangerous as it can adversely affect all parts of our functioning. So, we should do everything in order to get better and deep sleep.
Learn Ways To Biohack Your Sleep Cycle
Understanding Sleep Mechanisms
Our sleep mechanisms are associated with our circadian rhythm and sleep-wake homeostasis. Both are internal mechanisms that work together to regular the patterns between sleep and awake time.
Circadian Rhythm
An individual’s circadian rhythm is actually a 24 hour biological or internal clock that runs in your brain’s background and alternates between drowsiness and energized levels at specific internal during the day. Simply put, the circadian rhythm is also referred to as the sleep/wake cycle. It controls the sleep time and causes of sleep. It also helps you with the tendency to wake up in the morning without an alarm.
Sleep-wake Homeostasis
It tracks your need for sleep. Homeostatic regulates the intensity of sleep and also reminds the body to sleep after certain intervals. This drive for sleep gets stronger every hour of wake and wants you to sleep longer and deeper, especially after sleep deprivation. Many factors, including any underlying medical conditions, medications, stress, diet, and sleep environment, can influence sleep-wake homeostasis. Exposure to light can largely affect this, as it tells the brain whether it is day or night and has the potential to advance or delay the sleep-wake cycle.
Any disruption in the sleep mechanism may cause anxiety, depression, mood swings, poor memory function, poor focus, fatigue, and more. This could also lead to a weak immune system, weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes-prone (insulin resistance), and chronic diseases.
Benefits of Deep Sleep
We all know sleep is essential for our physical and emotional health. So, you should never underestimate the benefits of good sleep. Here are some benefits:
Proper Brain Function
Apart from flushing out harmful toxins from our brain, sleep does a lot more for proper brain function. The appropriate amount of sleep improves learning, memory, creativity, concertation, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
Boost Immune System
Our body generates Cytokines during sleep. Cytokines are a group of proteins, peptides, or glycoproteins generated by our immune system’s specific cells. This group of proteins helps to regulate immunity, inflammation, and hematopoiesis in our body.
Build Emotional Intelligence
The key to building emotional intelligence is sleep. It can improve our emotional and even social competency. Sleep regulates the Amygdala (set of neurons that play a crucial role in the processing of emotions, it’s part of the brain’s limbic system), and Striatum (a neuronal activity related to movements), hippo, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex.
Controls Body Weight
Proper sleep helps to maintain a healthy body weight. It impacts two major hunger hormones – Ghrelin and Leptin. Ghrelin hormones are a hunger signal for the brain, while Leptin signals fullness in the brain. Sleep controls Ghrelin hormones and lowers Leptin levels. Know how to Biohack Metabolism.
Better Blood Sugar Levels
Sleep controls the body’s glucose and energy cycle responsible for insulin resistance. The connection between sleep and blood sugar levels is almost a vicious circle. As your sleep time reduces, blood sugar increases, and when the blood sugar increases, the sleep time reduces. So, to reduce the risk of diabetes, proper sleep is required.
Here is an interesting Biohacking Sleep Chart for a better understanding
Biohacking Sleep Chart- Download and View High Res File
Conclusion
It is time you take your sleep seriously because it actually matters a great deal. Your need for sleep and the patterns might change as you age, but its significance does not go away. Let your body figure out how much sleep it needs; some may require long hours; some may need a little less. There are no magic numbers for sleeping hours; it all depends upon how fresh you feel once you wake up. To make each day safe, fun, and productive, ensure you get a regular good night’s sleep. It is often not the number of hours you sleep, it is how much you have been able to rest and how much of it was deep sleep.
