Deadly Sleep Deprivation: How To Curb The Night Hormone

Autumn moping and the overpowering urge to sleep all day are on their way, along with the cold and slush. Seasonal phenomena can become a chronic condition and possibly cause significant sickness over time as a result of numerous circumstances. Read this article to understand why we can’t sleep through the cold nights, if it’s beneficial to snuggle up in the office during the day, how to fast fall into Morpheus’ arms in the evening, and how to control the night hormone.

Internal Clock Failure

The autumn and winter seasons provide an unfavorable environment for the development of many illnesses, particularly cardiovascular disorders. The internal biological clock begins to fail at this time, resulting in seasonal depression.

The absence of sunlight in northern latitudes is a specific cause of sleepiness in the fall and winter. The major regulator of the synthesis of the night hormone, melatonin, is sunlight. With the advent of darkness in the evening, its concentration rises quickly, signaling all organs to switch to the night mode of function. Melatonin concentration drops quickly to a minimum as soon as light strikes the retina in the morning.

Melatonin is produced in the pineal gland, a tiny protrusion in the brain’s central region. The suprachiasmatic nuclei, which act as a central clock, send light signals to the pineal gland, which we refer to as a chime. However, each cell in the body has its own clock, which runs on entirely distinct dials, with six hours being six hours, twelve hours being twelve hours, and so on. Even the genome’s activity at night, during sleep, differs from the genome’s activity during waking hours. When natural seasonal variations occur, this complicated system must respond.

Sleep Deprivation Causes Death

An urban dweller’s body, already stressed by a seasonal shortage of sunshine, is further stressed by a lack of time for appropriate sleep – long commutes to and from work, traffic jams, domestic duties…

According to the doctor-somnologist, the average duration of human sleep has dropped from eight to six hours in the previous hundred years, and in certain megacities, it is now less than six hours, which is a major concern. The problem is that the cerebral cortex absorbs information from the internal organs during sleep and initiates regeneration processes. When sleep is disrupted, the function of internal organs and immunity suffers significantly. As a result, if a person does not get enough sleep, the chance of contracting the flu or any other viral disease increases.

This is the most global problem because, on the one hand, we treat, reduce blood pressure with pills, use high-tech methods to treat coronary heart disease, cancer, and other diseases, but we increase the incidence of these diseases, and to a large extent, by reducing sleep and worsening its quality. So we’re pursuing the carrot here, but it’s tethered ahead of us, and we can’t catch up.

Any biological thing that goes seven days without sleep will perish. Without water, a human will live for 18 days, 72 days without food, and just a week without sleep. A week does not cause heart attacks, strokes, cancer, atherosclerosis, or any other serious morphological alterations, but it does cause a considerable reduction in immunity. Because we are surrounded by germs on the skin and in the gastrointestinal system, a microbial flora invasion occurs, and the individual dies of intoxication.

Office Passion

Scientists talk about the effect of sleep duration on metabolism. The essential criterion for office employees to prevent seasonal sleep difficulties is to stay in a place with as much daylight as feasible. Advanced firms who care about their employees’ health, according to the expert, even utilize special light bulbs that simulate sunshine in the office.

Traditional artificial lighting, according to somnologists, does not have this effect since its spectrum differs from that of sunshine. On the contrary, it exacerbates the harmful effects of discoordination in nature, because excessive use of light devices, such as cellphones and laptops, interrupts the generation of melatonin, especially in the evening.

Clerks have recently had the chance to sleep at the workplace, thanks to the growing popularity of special capsules for daytime rest across the world. This tendency is common in the West, but most domestic companies are not prepared to take such a step. Some major corporations, on the other hand, have been using capsules for some years.

The device is constantly being improved by a team of experts ranging from physicists to musicians. “In our laboratory, the incidence of falling asleep is around 70-80 percent,” experts claim. The emergence of specific rhythms on the encephalogram shows that the brain has entered a state of superficial sleep and that the essential processes of cognitive recovery have begun – memory, attention, focus, and information absorption. It’s like a reset; it doesn’t replace night sleep since there isn’t a deep phase, but it does allow you to work longer.”

Some individuals feel that sleeping during the day is detrimental since it lowers the quality of evening sleep. However, somnologists claim that a 20-30 minute nap, but no longer, improve human performance, alertness, and cognitive functioning. As a result, it is advantageous in terms of performance. It can make it more difficult to fall asleep at night by lowering so-called sleep pressure in the evening hours but only for a longer period of time.

It’s crucial to figure out why someone is drowsy: either he doesn’t get enough sleep at night or he has a medical condition. How can you tell the difference between short and long-term problems? Acute insomnia may affect anybody and is linked to stressful events, as well as negative and positive emotions. If the situation does not improve after the stressor has been removed for more than three months, it is time to see a doctor.

Insomnia On A Schedule

In some cases, simply sticking to a daily routine and increasing physical activity (exercise, swimming, and proper nutrition) will be enough to solve the issue. But not all, as there are over 80 different causes of sleep problems.

Some patients only have insomnia for a short length of time. Insomnia, for instance, might begin on the 15th of October and cease on the 15th of April. This might be due to a dark iris that prevents sunlight from penetrating the eye. In such circumstances, it is required to utilize a specific light bulb for 30-40 minutes in the morning. And there’s no need to stare at the light bulb all the time; simply being present – eating breakfast or applying cosmetics – is enough. And soon, sleep is fully returned. This amount of light in the morning is sufficient to suppress melatonin production during the day and restore it during the night.

Sleeping tablets, the most common insomnia treatment, are only used by professionals in rare situations to treat an acute illness. There was once optimism that an ideal hypnotic (sleeping pill) would be developed, but this has yet to happen since the mechanisms that induce wakefulness are too complex, and the brain does not have a single sleep center, but rather numerous. And it’s possible that it’ll never be made.

Experts in each case determine the precise cause of sleep problems, which number in the hundreds. Somnologists examine the patient, do a polysomnographic examination, which provides objective information about the patient’s sleep condition, order tests, and then recommend therapy.

If you find yourself dozing off while reading, watching tv, talking to someone, sitting in the