Friday, June 12, 2015

Ted Talks: One More Reason to get a Good Nights Sleep

Ted Talks: One More Reason to get a Good Nights Sleep

Author: Jeff Lliff

Rating: ****

By: Jessica Lennon

I thoroughly enjoyed this talk as it goes into detail about how the brain removes waste from itself and explains why getting a good nights sleep is a really good things for you, and can in the long run, possibly reduce your chances of a brain disease.

Through this Ted Talks episode Jeff explains the new research behind how and why sleeping, out of all the actions us humans do, has such a restorative effect on us. It explains that once the cells of organs have used up the nutrients they must somehow get rid of the waste they create. They do this by lymphatic vessels, which are all over the body except in the brain. They discovered that the way the brain got rid of its waste was by moving the waste out to the CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) and gets dumped into the blood. The waste doesn't just find its way to the CSF though, there is a specialized network of plumbing and allows it to happen. The CSF will follow the blood vessels all throughout the brain to wash away the waste, and all of this only happens in a sleeping brain. When people go to sleep, it seems their brain cells shrink to allow the fluid to rush through the brain. The brain needs to clear emalade beta, something that tends to build up in the spaces of a person with Alzheimers brain instead of being cleared. It's thought to be one of the key steps in that disease. The clearance of this waste is much higher in the sleeping brain. Lack of sleep and letting the brain clean itself from this waste may be a step towards Alzheimers. When it comes to sleep it is the very heath and function of the mind and body that is at stake. Keeping these very basic housekeeping's of the brain today may be critical to preventing and treating diseases of the brain tomorrow.

This talk has definitely inspired me to rest more. I do get a good amount of sleep some of the time, but not nearly enough. Hearing just how the brains regenerates itself is an eye opener to keeping yourself rested, and allowing your body to do essential things. Its really interesting to see that a build up of a certain waste that isn't being cleared may be directly linked to Alzheimers disease, and maybe now that they have discovered this, they can start making their way to a cure. I learned quite a but from this talk, basically everything from the summary is what I learned. This article is something that is probably going to cause me to change my behavior. I knew it was important to get enough rest before, but I never really knew any of the science behind that it was always just something I had been told. I find it so interesting to actually know what the body is going while you sleep.  

Lliff, Jeff. Ted Talks: One More Reason to Get a Good Nights Sleep. Video. 2015.


No comments:

Post a Comment