If there were a pill that did the following, people would line up to buy it no matter what the cost:  strengthen your immune system; improve blood sugar levels; decrease risk of heart attacks and strokes; decrease risk of Alzheimer’s; improve your mood; lessen anxiety; help maintain ideal body weight; lengthen lifespan; help concentration and memory; facilitate learning; decrease risk of automobile and other accidents; improve athletic performance; facilitate creativity; lessen chronic pain; improve fertility.

There is such a thing and it doesn’t cost anything but it’s not a pill — it’s a good night’s sleep on a regular basis. There’s a good book about sleep, called “Why We Sleep,” by Matthew Walker, PhD, who is a sleep scientist who was at Harvard and who is now a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley, where he is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science.

According to Dr. Walker, “more than a third of adults in many developed nations fail to obtain the recommended seven to nine hours of nightly sleep.” In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control has declared sleep deprivation a public health epidemic. There are people who claim they can get by on less than seven hours of sleep a night, and indeed there is a gene called BHLHE41 that allows carriers to “survive on six hours of sleep, and show minimal impairment.” But people with this gene are extremely rare.

It’s not all about how long you sleep, but sleep quality is important as well. “Sleep architecture” refers to the different stages of sleep. There are four to six sleep cycles per night. Each cycle consists of three non-rapid eye movement (NREM) stages and one rapid eye movement (REM) stage. The stages in a normal sleep cycle are as follows:

• Stage 1 (called N1) occurs when a person first falls asleep, and lasts one to seven minutes. It’s easy to wake up a person in this stage.
• Stage 2 (N2):  Body temperature drops by 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit, muscles relax, and breathing and heart rate slow.
• Stage 3 (N3) is deep sleep, and it’s difficult to wake someone in this stage. Muscle tone, pulse, and breathing rate decrease further. This stage allows the body to recover, bolsters immunity, and contributes to insightful thinking, creativity, and memory.
• REM SLEEP:  Brain activity picks up. There is temporary paralysis of muscles other than those for eye movement and breathing. REM sleep is when dreams occur, and is necessary for memory, learning, and creativity. Newborns spend a lot more time in REM sleep and older adults less time than younger adults

Factors that can affect sleep length and architecture include the following:

• alcohol and caffeine
• sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome
• recent abnormal sleep patterns — Abnormal sleep cycles cause subsequent abnormal cycles.
• bedroom that’s too warm (65 degrees is ideal), or that’s not totally dark
• exposure to artificial light in the evening, especially blue LED light
• noise (Anyone who has children can recall nights of sleep deprivation when they were infants and babies)
• acute and chronic pain
• aging — as noted above, age-related decrease of REM sleep occurs; older folks also have more aches and pains what interfere with sleep; furthermore, older people are more apt to have to get up a night to urinate
• stress, depression, anxiety
• certain medications including stimulants used to treat ADHD, decongestants, and some antidepressants
• shift work; travel resulting in change of time zones; going on and off daylight savings

Dr. Greg Feinsinger is a retired family physician who started the non-profit Center For Prevention and Treatment of Disease Through Nutrition. For questions or to schedule a free consultation about nutrition or heart attack prevention contact him at gfeinsinger@comcast.net or 970-379-5718.