Gene Morphis ' View

We previously wrote about the activities that you (that is your brain, which is reading this) does while you sleep. Those activities are critical to memory, overall health and more. If you consistently don’t get enough sleep, your normal every day performance suffers-not a surprise to individuals who find themselves rotating from morning to evening to overnight shifts. Fortunately, science has come up with some tips for a good night’s sleep: Get regular exercise. But stop exercising at least two hours before trying to sleep; you’ll be too jazzed up. Go to bed at the same time each night. Stop looking at your portable electronic devices like your smartphone and tablet, an hour before bedtime. Those devices emit light in the spectrum that stimulates our brains to wake up. If you are sensitive to caffeine, have your last cup of coffee, glass of soda, etc. in the early afternoon. Get into a nighttime ritual. Clean your face, brush you...

Have you ever heard some ersatz over-achiever say, “sleep is over-rated”? He was wrong. If anything, sleep is underrated. There is abundant research to prove it. Like a lot of other stuff, we’ve learned what lack of sleep can do the hard way by not getting enough of it. You’ll Get a Dirty Brain if You Don’t Sleep Enough Dr. Maiken Nedergaard and associates at the University of Rochester Medical Center discovered a system that drains waste from the brain. While we sleep of course. Surrounding our spinal column and brain is cerebrospinal fluid. This clear fluid flows through channels in the brain, and the channels are controlled by glial cells. While we sleep, the glial cells move the fluid around and, among other things, it seems to remove beta-amyloid from brain tissue. If “beta-amyloid” rings a bell, it’s because some researchers think it is involved in Alzheimer’s disease. We clearly want that to be removed. If we don’t get sufficient sleep, we are letting the sludge build up...