Sleep deprivation and you
Janette Roy

There is an obvious correlation between sleep and health. On an everyday level, we know that when you go for two nights cramming for an exam, the evening of the third day often comes with the symptoms of a cold.

Everyday there is a war going on around us. The good guys are the many defense systems of our body and the bad guys are the potentially infectious microbes.

Our body represents a host to thrive in where food and fluids are plenty. To win this battle, these microbes must breach several lines of defense, the strongest being our immune system.

It is common knowledge that when we become ill, we also become very sleepy. This is because our organs are working extra fast in order to beat this infection and overcome it.

Sleep shuts down other organs that are not as important at the time and devotes all of its energy to the area of importance, fighting the infection.

It is strongly believed by doctors that sleep is a part of the body's defense strategy as the immune system becomes more active during sleep.

Studies show that if you are deprived of sleep for only eight hours and then are challenged with infectious microbes, the antibody response is weak. Futhermore the defense response is still below normal three days later. This is quite important for the university student as they are often severely sleep deprived. Here are some suggestions to aid your sleeping patterns:

1. Establish a regular bedtime and rising time, and stick to them. A regular bedtime and rising time can help you stabilize your internal clocks. Select a bedtime that's good and natural for you. Don't change your bedtime and rising time on weekends. Reprogramming your sleep rhythms for two days doesn't do much to help you erase sleep debt, and it throws off your sleep-wake cycles.

2. Avoid physical and mental stimulation just before sleep. But don't avoid sex (more to come). Physical exertion too close to bedtime energizes your body's systems by stimulating the release of adrenaline. Mental stimulation includes any activity that taxes your mind or gets your thoughts racing, such as watching an action-packed movie.

Similarily, planning tomorrow's schedule, reviewing for tomorrow's exam, or reading a chapter from an emotional book before turning out the light does not give you adequate time to disengage from mental activity before trying to sleep.

3. Try sex. Bet you thought you'd never read that in the paper. Actually, research shows sexual stimulation releases endorphins, hormones that make you mellow and relaxed. Making love just before you and your partner (and this does not include the person you just picked up at the bar) go to sleep can be a true sleep inducer, but it works only if you gain satisfaction from it.

4. Keep the bedroom for sleeping and sex only. If you use your bedroom as a place to eat, watch TV, read, talk on the phone, fight, or discuss weighty matters with your partner, break that habit to get better sleep. Sleep therapists insist that if our minds associate any functions other than sleep and sex with the bedroom, we're asking for sleep problems.

5. Develop sleep rituals. We train children to have sleep rituals and cue them by saying "It's time to get ready for bed." But as adults, most of us forget to continue the process in our own lives.

Sleep rituals run the gamut, from taking the garbage out or the dog for a walk to watching a certain news program or saying prayers.

6. Determine how many hours you should be sleeping. To determine your ideal length of sleep, factor in these considerations:

• how many hours you slept on average as a child
• how many hours' sleep you require to awake naturally (when you have not been overtired) without an alarm set
• how many hours you must sleep so as not to experience daytime sleepiness

7. Don't go to bed too early. Older people often go to bed too early; this only adds to the problem of fragmented sleep; consequently, their overall sleep is shallower.

The fact is, if you have determined that your normal sleep profile is eight hours, sleeping for ten only spreadsout the eight and results in interrupted and less satisfying sleep. Further, since your body normally lets you sleep only the number of hours it needs, if you're going to bed too early, you will likely awake too early as well.

8. Take a warm bath within two hours of bedtime. A twenty minute warm, soaking bath at a temperature of about 100-102 degrees Fahrenheit not only is a great relaxer at day's end, but also raises your core body temperature by several degrees.

The ensuing drop in body temperature will naturally initiate drowsiness and sleep.