"As a nation, we are sick because we don't sleep."

"As a nation, we are sick because we don't sleep."  Bent Formby, PhD

Where you sleep less than you were created to, melatonin { a GREAT antioxidant } isn't the only hormone affected. There are at least 10 hormones related to appetite, fertility, mental and cardiac health suffer from the effects of not allowing our body a full nights sleep. When we don't sleep in sync with season variations (living in too much artifical light in the winter and not heading to bed when the sun goes down) we alter our natural balance.

Let's look at some of those out-of-balance hormones:
Prolactin is a survival hormone that controls appetite and affect leptin which controls our carb cravings. We only secrete porlactin after we fall asleep. So if we are cutting our nights short, our bodies is still producing prolactin (remember hormones have to run a cycle during the night) which  suppresses leptin and makes us crave carbs upon waking in the morning.

Stress increases cortisol levels causes high levels of serotonin.  Serotonin is convereted to melotonin when we sleep. If we don't sleep enough to let our bodies convert all the serotonin to melotonin we end up with elevated levels of serotonin still upon waking.  High levels of serotonin during the day lead to depression.

Insulin is produced only when your body senses sugar, from eating carbohydrates, or stress, from too much cortisol from being in the light too long every day.  We have too much carbohydrate and too much stress in our lives, thus we have high levels of insulin. "Excess insulin makes you fat by causing fat to enter fat cells, your brain to tell you that you are hungry, and your liver to make fat from extra calories. It causes strokes and heart attacks by causing clots, raising triglycerides and lowering the good HDL cholesterol. Insulin promotes oxidation that converts the bad LDL cholesterol to oxidized LDL that forms plaques in arteries. High levels of insulin cause your kidneys to retain salt and raise blood pressure." states Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

In order to control our appetite for carbs and loose weight, we must raise our leptin levels and bring our insulin levels down, WE MUST GET MORE SLEEP!

Less sleep =  less melatonin (antioxidant) and less leptin (carb craving supressor) and more insulin
More sleep = serotonin used up to make melatonin (antioxidant)  and more leptin to curb carb cravings and lower levels of insulin

Sleep apnea sufferes, why are we overweight? Part of it is we haven't been really sleeping for possibly years!  Get your CPAP, stick with your treatment!  This is essential to hormone balance and everything they regulate in your body is absolutely dependent on a good-nights-sleep.

Falling Back

The time change has me so messed up with my sleep habits. It caused me to pause and look over some of my Sleep Apnea resources. Daylight savings gets us out of sync with natural seasonal variations by making it lighter/darker at times when our bodies weren't expecting it and don't have time to adjust to the change. When we aren't in sync with natural seasonal variations, our melatonin gets off balance. So what - you ask? Well, melatonin is the start of very, very important hormonal balance in our bodies. The fading of the light in the evening triggers the release of melatonin in our bodies.  With about 30 -45 minutes after melatonin surges when the sun goes down, our body naturally wants us to lay down and go to sleep. But most of us don't go to bed in North Dakota by 6pm which is a hole hour after it gets dark outside.

Melatonin triggers Prolactin to be produced in our bodies while we sleep. Both are strong antioxidants and have a cycle that runs in the night while we sleep. They help to protect our immune system. Prolactin also has a hugely more important job to do...

Prolactin suppresses Leptin as it cycles into the wee hours of the morning. Leptin is a hormone that is involved with driving humans to look for foods that have carbs because as animals, we need to eat high amounts of carbs in the summer to store fat for winter. Prolactin regulates Leptin. When Prolactin is at its highlight levels during the night, it "turns-off" or suppresses Leptin and this decrease our body's desire for carbs.

By not following our bodies natural rhythm of  surging  Melatonin and with-in 30-45 minutes going to bed so that proper Prolactin production can start, we prolong the cycle of Prolactin.  Prolactin needs about 8 hours to run through its cycle in the body. If we don't start Prolactin production until 10pm and get up at 5am - then Prolactin hasn't had a chance to works its full magic on Leptin. Leptin therefore is still elevated in the morning when we wake and so we want CARBS and usually eat them for breakfast!  Because Leptin is still elevated in the morning and we end up eating too many carbs for breakfast, this leads to interruption with our insulin levels and this leads to weight gain.

Here's a parting thought - when we were cavemen, it got darker earlier and earlier in the fall and winter. Melatonin triggered us to get sleepy and since we couldn't see much we let Melatonin lull us to sleep let the production of Prolactin begin. We slept a whole long night and let Prolactin run its full course and fully suppress Leptin.  We woke with no carb cravings in the morning...which was a good thing because back then, there weren't too many handy carbs for breakfast in the middle of winter. Probably just some dried venison wrapped in a pouch!

This begins my foray into how interrupted sleep wrecks havoc on our hormones and how those hormones lead to imbalances in insulin and weight gain. It helps me to me talk through the process and understand that my sleep apnea has affected me in very many physical ways and that getting therapy for proper sleep is essential to healthy living for me.

Light's Out - Dying for a Good Night's Sleep

T.S Wiley and Bent Formby, PhD are the authors of "Light's Out-Dying for a Good's Night Sleep". Their view is that, as a nation, Americans are sick because we don't get enough sleep. I want to take this post to highlight some points from this book that I really think are great. It isn't talking about sleep apnea - just sleep, or our lack-there-of. The book's focus is that our lack of sleep, not lack of exercise and poor diet, is what leads to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer. The book is rather technical and you almost get a sense the authors think there is a goverment conspiracy behind the push for increased carbohydate intake in our nation. However, if you take some of what is presented with a grain-of-salt, the book does talk about hormones that are regulated in sleep which affect our appetite. It was a light-bulb moment for me. It was an understanding of most of my life of trying to loose weight! So here I go! I will try to give you the hormone connection to sleep and sugar in a nutshell.... "Light's Out" starts out with trying to convey an understanding of where humans have come from...cavemen/nomads scrounging for food. We would have summer, where food is abundant and humans would store up fat for winter, and then there was winnter. Winter was a time of sleeping, eating what little variety of food could be stored or hunted, and making babies. As we have progressed, we have taken those long winter naps our bodies long for from caveman days, and made it perpetual summer with our bright flourecent lights that are on all winter long. Because we have light (and TV and computers and sports events, etc) we stay up too late at night and have shortened our night's sleep to way less than the 9.5 hours that would be optimal for humans. The main hormones the book talkes about are cortisol, serotonin, melatonin, prolactin, leptin and insulin and how they function in the sleep cycle. Melatonin and prolactin are produced during sleep and are very important antioxidants. When we don't get enough sleep, these two hormones aren't allowed to function how they are supposed to and we loose out on their faboulous antioxidant properties. The authors stongly feel this leads to the manifestation of many different diseases. It's a complicated cycle, let's start with serotonin. Serotonin is a hormone that is released in respose to cortisol. Cortisol is also a hormone. It is high when we have too many stressors in our life. It doesn't have to be bad stress either (divorce, death of a loved one, moving, empty nest) it can just be the busy stress of coming home from work, quick eating supper, going to the kids basketball game, coming home for a quick shower. When Cortisol is high, serotonin is high. When we sleep our serotonin gets converted to melotonin during the night. Melotonin is good - it helps us fall asleep and stay asleep. If we have too much stress and therefore too much serotonin and don't sleep long enough at night so all that serotonin can gets turned into melotonin then we have left-over serotonin in the morning. If this chronically takes place, it can lead to high serotonin levels and depression. It helps to keep serotonin low by getting enough sleep. Melotonin helps us fall alseep and stay asleep. This is important because when we sleep, and not until we fall into a good sleep, prolactin is produced. Prolactin is an important hormone because it controls our daytime appetite. It affects the hormone leptin which regulates our carbhydrate cravings. If we go to bed too late, we cannot get all our prolactin produced in a short night and we continue to produce prolactin into the morning. This excess prolactin will suppress the hormone leptin. If we low levels of leptin - we crave carbohydrates!!! Our bodies think we are under stress and that we need to take in energy for a "fight-or-flight" response. Hormone cycles are difficult to understand, but can you see the picture I am trying to convey? We continually shorten our nights. We have work deadlines, children's activites, shopping to do, housekeeping to do and all this leads to more stress and longer days. Longer days mean shorter nights! Less sleep, more stress->high cortisol->high serotonin->not enough time to process all our serotonin into the antioxidants we need in melotonin. Less sleep-> delays the processing of the prolactin we need from during our sleeping hours into the morning hours->suppressed leptin->carbohydrate cravings->high intake of carbohydrates->excess carbohydrates decrease the effectiveness of insulin causing us to store our excess carbohydrates as fat.->high insulin levels->stress on our body->high cortisol.... One big cycle with a good's night sleep right in the middle!!Whew!!! That is a lot of info! This book definitely goes to the extreme of trying to get their point across, but I want you to take this with you today: Sleep is a good thing. Sleep is a biological need. It helped me to read the technical cycles of hormones in this book. I have tried to be more conscious of my bed-time since I read this book. If I need to be up later, I try to keep the lights low and the tv off, or the sound low. I try to not be at the computer or watching tv right before I go to bed, so my mind has a chance to slow down some and prepare for sleep. I sure don't get in 9.5 hours a night, but I try to shoot for 8. I still feel like I am recovering from so many years of lack of sleep due to the sleep apnea that 8-9 hours of sleep is great for me. Maybe I will not need quite so much after I have repaid some of my sleep debt. I can say this for sure : When I have a short night sleep or several in a row - I do find that I am looking in the cupboard for snacks. If I had a really long, restful night's sleep I can adhere to a lower carb lifestyle easier. I recommend this book to read. Just remember to not take everything they say to heart - the authors do tend to be a bit extreme!