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Chronic sleep deprivation suppresses immune system
- corybrown 10y agoNice to see a well done twin study here, but I'm guessing this was conventional wisdom for most.
- temp246810 10y agoI hope to see more and more of these studies. I've always since I can remember struggled with sleep. During the periods where I've had it under control everything is just better: your outlook is more positive, more energy, less anxiety, and on and on and on. People say exercise should be put into a pill - I really wish they did this with sleep.
- marrone12 10y agoThere are sleeping pills, everything from benadryl to xanax to ambien. It's just that there are a lot of side effects to any of these approaches.
- coralreef 10y agoMelatonin is at least natural, don't know if there are many studies on it though.
- Mz 10y agoCo-Q-10 in the a.m. -- either by itself or paired with melatonin at night -- is probably a better solution.
- arielweisberg 10y agoI tried Melatonin during a heavy travel stressful period doing interviews. Getting back off it and falling asleep naturally was not easy for me. I think conventional dosages may be a bit extreme at 3-5 milligrams.
- dashundchen 10y agoI agree on the dosages sold being too high. I'm a terrible sleeper that wakes up all through the night. I've found taking a fraction, between an eighth and quarter, of the 3mg pills is enough for me to sleep and wake up refreshed. Also I've found sleeping at least 7-8 hours is necessary while taking it. Any less and I feel groggy all morning.
- heimatau 10y agoStudies tend to say that any more than 3mg of melatonin, your body will just evacuate it. Also, taking it more than 5 days is most likely pointless.
- zeroer 10y agoI can tell you with personal experience that this is not true. I have taken 30-40mg before bed, and there is a definite difference in my experience from taking 1-5mg. The sleepiness I felt 30-45 minutes after dosing was the most extreme sleepiness I've ever experienced in my life, the dreams are mind-blowing, and I feel tired the next day far beyond what I feel after taking a smaller dose.
- heimatau 10y agoThanks for your personal experience but I was talking about scientific studies [1]. - [1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12076414 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12076414 - [2] (a narrow google search that i'm sure i could find more) - https://www.google.com/#q=melatonin+dosage+site:.gov+OR+site:.edu https://www.google.com/#q=melatonin+dosage+site:.gov+OR+site...
- zeroer 10y agoI don't see anything in that study about excess melatonin being evacuated. The paper only talks about effectiveness as a sleep aid.
- carlisle_ 10y agoI think his comment was more about the idealism of the idea rather than the practicality.
- rhcom2 10y agoAnd they only help you get or stay asleep. The actual quality of your sleep can still be horrible. Like not breathing 40x a night like I just found out I do.
- zo1 10y agoHow did you get that diagnosed/discovered? If you don't mind me asking.
- toast0 10y agoSounds like sleep apnea[1], which is usually discovered by a sleep partner, would be diagnosed with a sleep study, and can often be treated with a CPAP[2] machine, it keeps your airways open while you sleep, which helps you breathe. [1] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sleepapnea https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sleepa... [2] continuous positive airway pressure
- TheDauthi 10y agoI'm late to this one, but the most common symptom is extreme sleepiness during the afternoons, even to the point of narcolepsy. It'll cause all kinds of havoc with your sleep routines. I got suspicious after falling asleep at work a few times, just an unbearable sleepiness, like I had just taken Benadryl and some vodka. Turns out I had sleep apnea to the tune of 61 events/HOUR.
- rhcom2 10y agoPretty much what these two posters said. Extremely tired all the time no matter the amount of sleep, went in for a sleep study and discovered I never fully entered deep REM so my brain was never fully rested. Got the Rx for the CPAP but haven't received it yet.
- monksy 10y agoThats a lot.
- derefr 10y ago"Sleep in a pill", to me, would be something that gives you the effects of having slept without sleeping, not something that makes you sleep.
- deleted_soon 10y agoThat might be modafinil, but again it comes with side effects and probably doesn't address the core issue
- derefr 10y agoMaybe I'm still not being clear. I don't think people mean "the effects of having slept" in a symptomatic sense, either (alertness, etc.) Rather, what people want is "the effects of having slept" in a physiological sense: a pill that rapidly sweeps the same toxins out of your body that sleep does gradually. Taking such a pill would have all the same long-term benefits that a healthy sleep schedule would have. Of course, a "pill" that did this properly would likely have to contain something like complex organic-waste-molecule-chellating molecules, or perhaps even biofilm-scrubbing nanomachines. :)
- oxide 10y agoyou still get psychosis after not sleeping for a few days, just like with amphetamine IIRC. the brain needs sleep, we aren't sure why, but stimulant psychosis does a pretty good job of proving that you start to break down after depriving yourself of sleep. paranoia, hallucinations, etc are all very common with this kind of stimulant abuse where you're keeping your body awake for days at a time. generally speaking, if you use stimulants (or "wakefulness promoting agents" like modafinil) regularly you should be dosing first thing in the morning after feeding yourself, not re-dosing, eating what you can when you can and sleeping each night as much as possible.
- dirtyaura 10y agoExercise and quality of sleep are related. Timing exercise to the right time in afternoon can improve your sleep considerably
- cocoa19 10y agoThat's tough, given a lot of people work 9-5. Easier to time your exercise before or after that.
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- colept 10y agoI wish Americans as a whole took sleep more seriously. We stay up late, brag about how little of it we need, and ignore the downsides. When I sleep less I find myself more irritable. To see studies like this is refreshing.
- minikites 10y agoThis is America, where we ask strangers, "So, what do you do for a living?" as an opening question because income generation is the most important thing about a person in the USA.
- grzm 10y agoOr, more charitably, because we're interested in what it it they actually do, as opposed to the income itself. There is an issue with conflating work and what's the most important defining characteristic of a person, but I don't think it has to do with income in general.
- minikites 10y agoWe don't ask that question though. That could be covered by "So, what are you interested in?" and if it happens to overlap employment, you find out just the same.
- whatshisface 10y agoWe ask what people do because everybody does something, while only a fraction of people have hobbies. (Hobbies include people whose work is their hobby, and exclude people who happen to care deeply about more private, or at least bigger-than-smalltalk things.)
- Apocryphon 10y agoStrange that more people have jobs than hobbies...
- giblaz 10y agoMelatonin is naturally occurring and works wonderfully for me. After popping 3mg, I'm out after an hour. Worth a shot, if anything.
- mjmj 10y agoSupplementing with Melatonin can cause your body to down regulate natural Melatonin production, so coming off of it can be troublesome or cause insomnia in some people. Another way to shift your circadian rhythm without the rebound effect is to use SAD lamps or gadgets like the humancharger which work with photoreceptors in your ear.
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- overcast 10y agoSorry, but, this required a new study? Sleep is the most consistent way of preventing, and curing ailments. At even the slightest hint of feeling run down, I'll go to bed extra early.
- shados 10y agoConsidering how little concern people put into it (eg: how difficult it is to handle disruptive neighbors at night, how little concern is put about noise near residential areas, etc), we sure as hell need more of those studies. Because as of right now, nobody cares.
- overcast 10y agoHandling disruptive neighbors at night is easy, I just call the police. Has worked every time.
- prophesi 10y agoIn my area, you're allowed to have the police called on you three times in a night before anything is done about it. And my brother in some suburb in Miami, he can call the police as much as he wants and nothing will be done about it unless the disruptive neighbor goes over the decibel limit or shows aggressive behavior. He ended up having to move out of that neighborhood since he had a belligerent neighbor that would drink beer, rev his bike, and blast metal every other night while still technically abiding by the laws.
- overcast 10y agoThat's unfortunate. I'm in the burbs of upstate New York. They arrive in about fifteen minutes.
- saryant 10y agoI have chronic anxiety. Last year I moved to a new apartment and—more importantly—to a quiet side street. My old apartment was right on the busiest road in town. After a few days of adjusting to the new noises, my quality of sleep dramatically improved and my anxiety attacks became less frequent and less severe. Not eliminated but much more manageable. The importance of quality sleep is vastly underestimated. (Data is not the plural of anecdote blah blah blah).
- Mz 10y agoI like seeing this, but: "Correlation does not prove causation." I have a serious, incurable medical condition. Getting healthier has dramatically improved my ability to sleep. So, while lack of sleep may well cause health problems, that relationship can run the other direction. I see nothing in this piece which addresses that possibility.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoThis is my concern as well. Already this thread is full of "duh" comments and I seriously doubt the issue is this cut and dry. As someone else with a condition that affects sleep, I think it is safe to say there is a chicken and egg problem with these studies that has not been resolved, at least in many cases.
- maxxxxx 10y agoMost of mind-body connections go both ways. Do one and the other factor will improve. Improve the other factor and first will get better. It's almost never a one-way connection.
- ihaveahadron 10y agoYou don't say
- tbrownaw 10y agoIt's always interesting to see things that everyone knows, turn out to be things that we don't actually formally know yet.
- sharkweek 10y agoOr most notably, just kind of ignore - I know some of the things I do are bad for me, but I do them anyways...
- 3princip 10y agoI used to like to sleep for as long as possible, then slowly it began to feel like a waste of time. Also, having small children affect sleep although not directly, it's the time you try to claw back after putting them to sleep, pushing it a little later to get other things done. After a while it became obvious nothing much was being achieved this way, in fact my mental acuity seemed to drop substantially. Then I realized I hadn't been dreaming (or at least remembering dreams) for a while and that was weird. Slowed down, went to bed as soon as tiredness kicked in for a few months. Improved my diet which probably helped a lot. Dreams have returned with a vengence, it feels like all night is one long dream, I feel better and sharper. I wish I could sleep less than 7 hours, but my body disagrees.
- ergothus 10y agoI agree with everything you listed, but I have one complication. "went to bed as soon as tiredness kicked in". Give me a night or two of good sleep...and I won't be tired until 1am. Waking up for work will then be hell (I don't function well on low sleep). My body knows when it is tired...but that doesn't match the work schedule :( When I'm practicing sleep diligence (which comes and goes based on whether I've been tired a lot lately or not) I have to force myself to go to bed when I'm not feeling tired. That feeling of sacrificing time is almost as hard to maintain as being constantly fatigued. First world problems, but they are my problems.
- 3princip 10y agoThere is definitely a drift towards staying up later and later, and of course kids and/or work are not forgiving of that trend, so the sleep deprivation starts to accumulate again. I guess just listening to what your body is telling you and not pushing it, especially if the reason is work (side-project or career), but even just staying up for something trivial like watching a movie or whatever. Maybe I can use a lack of dreams to tell when I've gone too far.
- zbobet2012 10y agoThis is hard for people with kids and a full schedule but there is an effective solution: Work. Out. More. Seriously, part of the reason you're probably not tired is because you simply have not done enough physical exertion.
- princetontiger 10y agoI sleep 8 hours and wake up automatically. If I get 6 or less, it feels like a bus hit me.
- Mc_Big_G 10y agoI keep telling people it's making them sick to only sleep 4 hours a night and they keep telling me that "It's just how I am". No, it's not. It's how you've forced your body to behave after years of staying up too late and drinking coffee too late and drinking alcohol and not caring about sleep. It's not normal. It's not "how you are". You're not "totally fine" on 4 hours of sleep. You are fooling yourself.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ge96 10y agoha I could attest to that. I also used to experience those sleep-paralysis events Jesus those were terrifying. Thankfully I have not had that in a long time. But yeah, sleep is good. My body feels sore all over when not sleeping for a long time, get sick easier, can't even watch tv or do anything, you just hate yourself hahaha or briefly go delirious then go back to hating your current situation, can't enjoy anything.
- imcoconut 10y agogotta get good sleep.
- imcoconut 10y agogotta get good sleep.
- EternalData 10y agoIt's fascinating to think of a counterfactual world where humans don't need sleep -- sometimes I wonder how much more could be done. Sleep seems to be a biological constraint that could be optimized around.
- RugnirViking 10y agoIts something i've put thought into and it seems that it would be a truly incredible advantage to any species to remove it, so there must be some fundamental reason that is preferable than having almost twice as much time in the day. I believe that the primary function of sleep is that it is an inexorable part of learning, but more studies are required in this area
- Lxr 10y agoThe article does not mention if they actually showed causality. What if there is a third variable (coffee, acquired virus, anxiety, lack of exercise) that simultaneously causes lack of sleep and a depressed immune system? The cause could even be the other way around - I know I don't sleep well when I'm feeling sick.
- true_religion 10y agoWhen you show a correlation like this, you can still take action. Even without knowing the underlying reasons behind the issue, you can at least diagnose based on the easily visible corrleated event----sleep depravation is much easier to test for than the comorbid immune supression.
- nine_k 10y agoI wish having healthy sleep became vogue. Imagine people humble-bragging about the quality of their dreams, about sleeping 8 hours or more, having enough self-discipline to routinely go to bed by 10:30pm, etc. Imagine sleep, it's quality, the freshness of body and mind it gives, became a subject of conspicuous consumption, a symbol of higher status. "I work smarter, not harder", etc. Dies not sound implausible to me.
- katzgrau 10y agoDude, I'm in bed right now (9:30pm). After I'm done typing this out I'll read my book for a bit and go to sleep. I'll prob get up around 6am with 7.5 - 8 hours of sleep, work out, and be at my desk by 9. I bootstrapped my business and I work 8-10 hour days. I wasn't always this way. Getting on a healthy sleep and exercise schedule is the best thing I've ever done. The hardest part is, right, rejecting the SV mantra that you need to work every waking hour and drink Soylent if you wanna be successful. As they say, it's a marathon.
- GotAnyMegadeth 10y agoAnecdote: I used to sleep about 8 hours a day, but then had a long period of anxiety and depression that caused me to average about 4 hours sleep a day. This lasted for about 9 months, maybe more. During this time my brain was on constant overdrive, thinking about everything all the time, for most of that time I didn't notice any loss in alertness or clarity. I was particularly anxious about my friends and was out seeing different friends about 13 nights a fortnight. I was probably getting drunk about 3 nights a week. When I get depressed I don't really eat much, and I lost about 17% of my body weight. It was terrible, but in all this time I never got ill at all, not even a mild cold or cough. I missed the whole of winter 2015/2016 cold season, and I've got ill at least twice a year in winter for as long as I can remember. I am even ill now! I was speculating the other day with a friend as to why this might be. I suggested that because I wasn't looking after my house I was pretty much sleeping in mould and I have heard anecdotally that that can have antibiotics that may have had an affect. He suggested that in extreme stress your body is less likely to overreact to a mild infection, and so maybe any infections may have much less obvious symptoms. I'm pretty much better now and am attempting to sleep 7h30 a day, but it really does feel like a waste of time.