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Series Code: HHJ
Program Code: HHJ000007S
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00:01 Music...
00:15 Happy to be here for today's presentation, 00:18 it's one of the more important aspects of our lives 00:22 that we're going to talk about: Sleep... 00:25 and yet, as important as it is, 00:27 it's one of the least understood 00:30 but in the last decade or so, 00:32 there's been a lot of research on sleep 00:35 and we now understand much more than we ever understood before. 00:40 Sleep... we often think of sleep as rest 00:44 because we wake up in the morning rested and refreshed 00:49 but the brain 00:51 isn't actually resting during the time that we're sleeping, 00:56 it's actually very active... 00:58 it just has different tasks that it's doing 01:02 and these tasks do not want us to be conscious 01:05 but unconscious 01:06 and so, we are asleep during that time 01:11 but the brain isn't actually resting, 01:14 it's working really hard during that time 01:17 and if it were not for the work that the brain was doing then, 01:20 you wouldn't be able to continue with your conscious life 01:23 in this world for the rest of the coming day. 01:26 If you live to be 90 years old, 01:29 you will have spent 30 years of your life unconscious 01:33 in the state of sleep. 01:34 It's absolutely essential... 01:37 you can't avoid it... we need it. 01:40 Did you get enough sleep last week? 01:43 Can you recall the last time you woke up 01:46 without an alarm clock... feeling refreshed... 01:48 not needing any Caffeine? 01:50 Two thirds of us 01:52 do not get the recommended eight hours of sleep. 01:55 Somewhere between seven and nine hours 01:58 is the ideal number for most people 02:02 and it's absolutely essential to get this sleep... 02:06 the effects of sleep deprivation are very harmful on the body. 02:11 One of the parts of us that is affected is the immune system. 02:17 Sleep deprivation demolishes our immune system... 02:23 sets us up for increased infections... 02:26 the cells of your immune system 02:31 need to be refurbished 02:34 and they are refurbished during the time of sleep. 02:37 They need to build up all of the ammunition and supplies 02:40 to carry on the battle against bacteria and viruses. 02:44 It's during this time that they make up the various 02:47 communicator molecules 02:48 and sending the messages back and forth 02:50 and so, it's absolutely essential 02:53 if we're going to be successful in fighting off the bacteria 02:58 and other microbes that can infect us 03:01 and cause serious harm... 03:03 we need good sound sleep... eight hours of it every night 03:07 but it's not only fighting infections... 03:10 your immune-system's job is not only 03:13 recognize foreign invaders from outside your body, 03:17 but also to recognize invaders from inside... rebels... 03:23 the cancer cells... cells that have altered change 03:26 that are no longer behaving as they should, 03:29 the immune system needs to recognize those and destroy them 03:32 and if you get a good sleep, 03:34 usually they're able to carry on their job. 03:37 We're obviously making cancer cells 03:40 on a regular basis in our body... 03:42 the immune system recognizes them and destroys them 03:45 and we're okay. 03:49 It's only when the immune system fails 03:51 and the cancer can take off and spread and grow 03:55 that we end up getting diagnosed with cancer down the road. 04:00 Pause... 04:01 Alzheimer's disease... 04:03 sleep deprivation is one of the key lifestyle risk factors 04:11 determining whether or not you're going to develop 04:14 Alzheimer's disease. 04:15 Devastating condition... the brain is broken down 04:19 and shrinks away and we lose cognitive function 04:23 we lose memory and... 04:25 not just memory but all of the other parts of the brain 04:29 seem to go with it and eventually we will die and... 04:32 because we just can't carry on the basic life functions 04:36 of the body without the brain directing 04:38 and coordinating those functions. 04:39 Pause... 04:42 We know that sleep deprivation is one of those risk factors... 04:45 if you're not getting enough sleep, 04:47 you are definitely at higher risk 04:49 for getting Alzheimer's disease. 04:51 It's a major risk factor in coronary artery disease... 04:56 heart attacks... strokes... 04:59 the number one cause of death in this country. 05:03 If you don't want those big tombstones on your EKG here, 05:09 these big raised tombstones here... 05:14 those... 05:15 what we call STEMI an S T Elevation M I 05:20 from occlusive infarct in one of the arteries of your heart. 05:27 It's a distinctive EKG finding 05:29 and you don't want those on your EKG 05:31 because if you do, you may also find the tombstone 05:34 over your grave soon... 05:37 they go along together there. 05:39 Sleep deprivation actually increases insulin resistance. 05:49 In other words, moves you into a pre-Diabetic state 05:52 and can push you on down that road towards Diabetes. 05:55 It's interesting... 05:56 you can take a group of healthy college students 05:59 cutting back on their sleep deprivation 06:02 so, they're getting less than six hours of sleep a night 06:07 and by the end of one week, 06:09 you can check their blood-sugar levels 06:12 and they're already going into this... 06:15 what we would be measured as: pre-Diabetic 06:18 so, the metabolism in your body 06:22 needs sleep to function properly 06:26 and not just the metabolism affecting insulin resistance, 06:31 there's couple of hormones that control our appetite 06:40 and how much food we eat. 06:42 Ghrelin and Leptin... 06:44 Ghrelin is an enzyme... not an enzyme... a hormone 06:49 that is released from your stomach 06:53 and when your stomach is empty 06:56 and ready to take another meal, 06:59 you start putting out Ghrelin. 07:02 Ghrelin says to the rest of the body, 07:04 "Hey, it's time to eat... we're empty... 07:07 we can take another meal here. " 07:08 Leptin has sort of the opposite effect, 07:12 Leptin is released by your fat cells 07:16 and if you've got a lot of fat cells built up, 07:20 you're going to put out more Leptin 07:22 and Leptin goes and tells the Appetite Center in the brain, 07:26 it says, "Hey, we've got a lot of food stored here, 07:29 you really don't need to eat right now... " 07:32 but with sleep deprivation, Ghrelin goes up... 07:35 "Hey, it's time to eat... stomach's empty... " 07:39 and Leptin goes down... 07:41 it quits saying, "Hey, we have got plenty of food, 07:44 we... " 07:46 and so the brain says, "Hey, well, we need food 07:48 and the stomach's empty, I think we're hungry... " 07:50 and it puts out those hunger signs 07:52 and we move on down that road to obesity 07:55 affecting so many people here in this country 07:59 and with a lot of serious health consequences 08:03 associated with obesity there. 08:06 Sleep deprivation contributes to all major psychiatric conditions 08:14 including anxiety, depression and suicide. 08:18 If you're not getting enough sleep, 08:20 you're pushing your brain towards more anxiety... 08:25 more depression 08:27 and it meets a lot of the other psychiatric conditions as well 08:34 are pushed over the edge with sleep deprivation 08:38 and, of course, sleep-deprived driving... 08:42 driving home after a night shift... 08:47 sleep deprived can be the same as driving on alcohol. 08:52 Your reflexes... your response time... 08:55 everything is off... 08:57 you can get these... it's like the brain wants to sleep so bad, 09:00 it starts getting this little micro-sleeps... 09:02 in other words, you're trying to stay awake 09:04 and yet the brain kind of shuts off... 09:06 and you... "Give me my five minutes... " 09:08 and you keep doing that trying to stay awake... 09:10 responsible for a large amount of the... 09:14 particularly, single-vehicle accidents 09:17 but many of the multi-vehicle accidents as well 09:20 can be traced back to a sleep- deprivation individual there. 09:25 Pause... 09:28 The shorter your sleep the shorter your life span... 09:31 the two go together... 09:34 longevity and adequate sleep 09:37 are definitely paired together 09:40 for it is said, "I'll sleep when I'm dead. " 09:45 If you accept that philosophy, you're going to find that 09:52 you're going to be dead sooner. 09:55 You're going to have a shorter life span 09:56 and that shorter life span 09:58 is going to have a lot more misery, discomfort 10:01 and illness of various types in it. 10:03 So, for a longer lifespan and a healthier lifespan, 10:08 get your sleep now while you're still alive. 10:11 The elastic band of sleep deprivation 10:15 can stretch only so far before it snaps. 10:19 Pause... 10:22 Human beings are the only species 10:24 that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep 10:26 without any legitimate gain. 10:28 Depriving yourself of sleep is only going to put you behind 10:32 or sputter out. 10:34 There's a sleep-loss epidemic throughout the industrialized 10:39 nations... 10:40 World Health Organization has declared 10:44 a sleep-loss epidemic. 10:45 United States... UK... Western Europe... 10:48 Japan... South Korea... 10:50 all of these countries... 10:51 the majority of the nation is running on less sleep 10:56 than they really need 10:58 and they're suffering all of these consequences 11:00 they talk about here... 11:03 really, metabolic problems 11:05 and psychiatric problems... mental disease... 11:08 all of those are increased and enhanced with sleep deprivation. 11:14 Pause... 11:18 So, what is sleep? 11:19 Pause... 11:24 You know, we spend all this time sleeping, 11:27 what happens when we sleep? 11:30 We are not unconscious... 11:32 we're actually carrying on a lot of very important activities 11:37 in the brain... 11:39 the brain is active 11:40 but it's active in a very different way 11:42 carrying on very different functions 11:45 and you're not awake. 11:46 Consciousness is a condition of the brain in a non-sleep state 11:54 and it depends on eight hours of sleep a day 11:59 to be able to function optimally in that time there. 12:03 One of the first questions I was supposed to look at is: 12:07 How do we know when to go to sleep? 12:11 How does the body decide when to sleep and when to wake up? 12:14 We have a clock built in there 12:17 and let's take a look at the clock here... 12:22 pause... 12:26 here in the... right over here 12:30 in the very center here... 12:32 you see that little green spot there? 12:35 Suprachiasmatic nucleous... 12:38 it's a little cluster of cells... 12:40 there is a large picture of it here... 12:43 down here at the base in the center of the brain... 12:45 or even expanded picture of that here 12:48 of the different kinds of cells that are clustered in there 12:52 and, of course, those cells have axons and dendrites extend out 12:56 to all kinds of other centers and are connected to everything. 12:59 But, you know, in many computers and electronic devices, 13:04 we have little clocks built into them. 13:06 Well, your brain is the same way, 13:08 it's got a clock built in there... 13:10 we call it a circadian clock. 13:12 Circadian means "circa" approximately or about 13:18 and "dia... " day... 13:20 so, Circadian... days... about a day... 13:23 so this is a 24-hour clock, 13:25 there's specialized proteins in there that build up 13:28 and build down 13:30 and the re-balance of this oscillating thing... 13:32 positive and negative feedback... 13:34 and it builds up and goes down... 13:36 goes up... and it oscillates in a 24-hour cycle 13:40 and what controls when and how that is? 13:44 It's a daylight clock... 13:47 it's connected to your eye. 13:49 Now, most of us are familiar with 13:55 the eye 13:57 and the light comes in through the lens 14:00 it shines on the back... we have the Retina there... 14:02 and here's an expanded picture... 14:05 if you take just a little piece of this Retina 14:08 and expand it here, the light comes in this way 14:11 and right at the base right here, 14:12 there's kind of a reflective layer here 14:14 to kind of reflect back as much light as possible 14:17 from the outer surface here 14:19 and these cells here are the rods and the cones 14:22 responsible for real dim black-and-white vision 14:25 as well as more brighter daylight color vision 14:28 with the cones here 14:30 and usually when we think about 14:32 light-sensing cells in the brain, 14:34 these are the cells that sense the visual images 14:38 that are focused on the Retina by the lens of your eye 14:43 and the message as they send 14:45 will go clear to the very back of your brain 14:47 and that's where you will see whatever it is you're looking at 14:50 but these are not the only light-sensitive cells 14:54 in your brain, the rods and the cones... 14:56 there is a third type of light sensor in your eye 14:59 in addition to the rods and the cones 15:01 and that... RGC cells right up here called ganglion cells. 15:05 They're very different and the information they send 15:11 goes out to neurons 15:12 and they do not connect back to the back part of your brain 15:15 and you don't see images or pictures with these cells. 15:21 Instead, these cells send their signals of light 15:28 back to this super chiasmic nucleus here. 15:32 Pause... 15:35 Here is a picture... here's our super cosmic nucleus here, 15:40 a little clock and sunlight comes in here 15:44 when we wake up and open our eyes 15:47 and it's daylight 15:48 and it says, "Hey, it's daylight... " 15:50 and so, the cell starts going into its daylight cycle... 15:53 and it builds up higher and higher and higher 15:55 stronger till the middle of the day 15:56 and then as the day wanes and light dims 16:00 and we move towards night, 16:01 this light's not coming in here... it's cooled down 16:04 and it knows that it's off here 16:06 and it keeps in this daily cycle here 16:09 and it's our daily experience of day time... of sunlight 16:13 that keeps the clock running so our brain knows 16:17 it's day time or night time 16:20 and we were designed to be awake in the day time 16:23 and to be asleep at night time. 16:25 Now, this little center... 16:28 remember these are little neurons here 16:29 and they got their messages 16:32 from the little light-sensor cells here 16:34 which synapsed here... 16:35 gave them the messages of daylight or not 16:38 and it went through its daily clock cycle 16:40 and it's sending out a continuous message 16:43 about sort of where we are in the clock cycle here 16:45 electronically. 16:47 In other words, little electrical impulses 16:50 are coming out 16:51 and they're going down to different... 16:52 several different centers in the brain here 16:54 as well as some down and even in the brain stem here 16:57 they go down to here 16:59 and down in your neck there's some centers there 17:02 and then they come back up to the Pineal gland 17:05 and the Pineal gland is what is going to show us 17:10 what... is going to show everything else in the body 17:15 what time it is 17:16 and when it should be doing what it's supposed to be doing. 17:19 Pause... 17:23 Here's a sort of a little expanded picture. 17:25 Over here you can see these are the Ganglion cells here 17:29 and these little Ganglion cells here 17:33 are the ones that are sending their messages back here. 17:35 Here's our little clock 17:37 and the clock is sending messages out here 17:42 which is going way down here 17:45 up to some other centers back up to the Pineal gland 17:48 which is going to release Melatonin into the blood 17:50 to go to the rest of the body. 17:52 The Ganglion cells are also sending some messages up here 17:56 to some other centers... 17:58 this particular reflex-pass-ways and all these little things 18:01 sends a message back to the eye... to the Iris of your eye 18:05 that opens and closes... 18:07 to control the amount of light going in. 18:10 You shine a bright light in somebody's eye, 18:11 what happens? 18:13 The pupil constricts down. 18:15 You take the bright light away... it opens back up. 18:19 These are the little centers that are controlling that 18:22 and they know because of the Ganglion cells... 18:26 not the rods and cones... 18:27 so the Ganglion cells are controlling that little reflex 18:30 but the one we're interested in right now 18:32 is... that's what's setting your clock. 18:35 So the clock knows when to be running the daylight cycle 18:39 and it's sending the message down here to the Pineal gland 18:42 and the Pineal gland is going to release Melatonin. 18:45 Melatonin is a hormone. 18:48 Hormones are molecules that control other cells 18:52 and in this case, Melatonin is going to control 18:56 all of the other glands and structures in the body 18:59 that need to be running on a Circadian rhythm. 19:02 You know, it's kind of like, 19:05 if you think of all the different organs of your body 19:08 as different instruments in an orchestra, 19:12 now, if everybody put ear plugs in their ears 19:16 and just looked at their music and started playing a song, 19:20 after a while... some would be playing a little faster, 19:24 some a little slower 19:25 and pretty soon they'd be all out of sync 19:27 and that would make terrible disharmony. 19:29 If you really want to sound good, 19:31 what did all the musicians need to do? 19:34 They need to look at the Conductor who is doing the beat 19:39 and showing them when to come 19:41 and keeping them all on the same beat 19:43 so they're all going together at exactly the right time. 19:45 Melatonin is the conductor waving that baton 19:51 and telling every organ when to do its job. 19:56 It's like... if you think about it... 20:00 the different glands put out their hormones 20:04 at different times 20:06 and they know from the Melatonin level 20:08 when it's time for them to do their job. 20:11 Now, some may come at a different time 20:13 just as different instruments may play 20:15 in different parts and pieces 20:17 but they're all watching the conductor 20:19 and they know when to come in on their note 20:22 and play their part based on how the conductor 20:24 is sending out that signal. 20:26 Pause... 20:29 This picture... you don't want to memorize this, 20:31 I just threw this up so you could get a little bit 20:34 of an idea of the complexity 20:36 of the various Neurotransmitters that are used by the neurons 20:41 to communicate to all of these centers 20:43 and eventually to the Pineal gland 20:45 and if you'll notice here how many of these Centers 20:50 could be related to the action of various drugs, 20:54 in other words, we use different medications or drugs 20:57 because they have a biological effect. 20:59 In other words, they'll go to... like... 21:01 here you have Gamma aminobutyric acid 21:04 used as a neurotransmitter here... here... 21:07 over here... over here... 21:10 and we use all these places over here... 21:11 that particular receptor is affected by the Benzodiazepines, 21:18 Ativan, Valium... those types of drugs 21:21 and so, any time you take one of those, 21:24 besides what it's doing over your mid-lower 21:27 or other parts of the brain, 21:28 it's also affecting these areas 21:30 and the same with this Opioid receptors here... 21:33 there's a hydroxytryptophan... 21:36 there is all these different... acetylcholine down here... 21:41 norepinephrine here... 21:42 all of these different things... 21:44 different drugs are affecting all of those in various ways 21:48 and I want you to get a picture of the complexity of the brain, 21:52 the delicateness of all of these little circuits 21:55 that have to work just right for everything to go right. 21:58 When you take a drug, it doesn't just go to the one place 22:02 where, "Oh, I'm taking this 22:03 so that it will make me feel better here 22:05 or I'm taking this for this... " 22:06 it's also going to 100s of different places 22:09 and messing up how they're working as well. 22:13 The ideal is that the brain can run clear and clean 22:19 as God designed it... 22:20 fresh... without interference... outside interference... 22:26 He designed just the right balance 22:27 of everything going on there. 22:29 Sometimes, in emergency cases, 22:32 we have to use certain medications 22:34 to override some terrible problem in there 22:37 but that's why all medications have side effects... 22:39 that's because they not only do what you want them to do, 22:43 they also are going to start jamming up the network 22:46 in all the other places 22:47 so, the ideal is to come back to the perfect diet... 22:52 perfect night's sleep every night... 22:55 so important for all these neurons especially... 22:59 and in those... that situation... 23:01 with proper diet... without toxins, 23:04 without junk food 23:05 and without drugs... 23:06 we're going to get the best functioning of the brain... 23:11 the best mind and synapses that God can communicate with. 23:16 Here's a picture of Melatonin release... 23:20 remember the release of Melatonin here is... 23:25 you know, from the Pineal gland is coming out because 23:28 the lights send it through all these electrical signals... 23:31 through all these little synapses with their chemicals 23:34 and so it knows when to put the Melatonin out. 23:36 Now, if we measured the Melatonin in the blood... 23:39 so, now we've got a hormone in the blood... 23:41 the hormone is Melatonin... here's what it looks like... 23:44 it's made out of hydroxytryptophan. 23:47 Here is your level... going along here... 23:51 Melatonin level in your body is close to zero during the day, 23:55 there's no Melatonin circulating in your blood 23:57 but here in the evening, 23:59 here we've got about 8 o'clock at night, 24:01 it's dark... it's now it says... "Oh, it's night time... " 24:05 and Melatonin levels shoot up and peak up here 24:09 till we get really high levels here 24:11 by the middle of the night 24:13 and then, they drop off precipitously... 24:15 in the morning, we're back down to zero there. 24:20 Pause... 24:21 and it continues "zero" all day long 24:25 and it's this pulsing piece at night time 24:28 that helps you to bring on the process of sleep... 24:32 it's sort of like the... 24:33 it's not what makes your sleep... 24:36 it's what tells you when to sleep 24:39 and there's Melatonin receptors in the brain 24:42 and Melatonin is a key that can push you down that. 24:45 It's sort of like the... 24:47 you got a bunch of runners here... 24:49 ready to run a race 24:51 and you've got somebody on the starting line 24:53 with a starting gun... he says, 24:54 "On your mark... get set... go... " boom... 24:57 well, Melatonin is that firing of that gun... 25:00 getting everybody up moving there on time. 25:04 Pause... 25:07 Here you can see Melatonin controlling 25:09 the output of Cortisol from the adrenal cortex. 25:13 You notice here as the... 25:18 here the red is the Melatonin peaking at night... 25:22 notice Cortisol is down there 25:24 but it's the drop in Melatonin 25:26 lets the adrenal gland know, 25:28 "Oh, it's time to put out Cortisol... " 25:30 so, as this drops... it starts pouring out Cortisol, 25:33 Cortisol is going to peak here in the middle of the morning 25:37 and Cortisol gives you that kind of good 25:40 "top of the morning" feeling... 25:42 everything is zooming along great now... 25:44 it was Melatonin that put it there at the right time. 25:49 All of the other hormones in the body 25:51 run on Circadian... thyroid hormone has a Circadian... 25:55 here's your body temperature. 25:57 Notice here as your Melatonin in green there peaks at night, 26:02 the body temperature drops, 26:04 it actually goes a few degrees cooler 26:06 and that cooling of the body actually induces sleep... 26:09 it helps... one of the things that helps with sleep. 26:13 You sleep better in a cool room. 26:15 You'll sleep better if you're not overheated 26:18 and the Melatonin is helping to push your body into that 26:22 by dropping the body's temperature 26:24 just a little bit there. 26:26 Melatonin changes with age. 26:28 That big high peak... that black line up there 26:32 is children. 26:33 Children have the highest Melatonin levels 26:36 and how much do children sleep? 26:40 A lot... and they need that sleep. 26:42 You know that phrase, "Sleep like a baby... " 26:44 that's Melatonin. 26:46 That's telling the body, "Hey, you need to sleep... 26:48 let's turn on sleep and keeps going. " 26:51 At Adolescence and puberty, there is a drop in that 26:55 and now the "Melatonin peaks" every night 26:58 are not quite as high 27:00 and that helps turn the clock on puberty 27:03 and actually tell the body, "Now is the time... " 27:06 it's part of that change there, 27:08 but it also starts running at that level 27:10 and that's the ideal level of probably for the peak or ideal 27:16 or the body is running at its greatest 27:18 at those levels right there. 27:20 But as time passes, we get to the 40s and 50s... 27:24 the level gets lower. 27:26 Now, we might start having... not sleeping as well... 27:30 not as easy to fall asleep... 27:31 and 50s and 60s levels are lower... 27:35 past 65... I mean we're way down there 27:39 barely peaking out and... 27:40 in other words, with age, we deteriorate 27:43 the amount of Melatonin coming out is less and less. 27:47 This is why we often give a recommendation with age... 27:51 if there is difficulty sleeping, supplementing with Melatonin 27:56 at bedtime can actually be an excellent... 28:00 to restore that Melatonin surge 28:02 back up to its useful levels there 28:05 and so, many people recommend Melatonin at bedtime. 28:09 It's not a drug per se... 28:12 you're just restoring to the body 28:14 what God always designed to be in there 28:16 and helping to push this 28:18 process along and to its right functioning status there. 28:27 Pause... 28:29 Here's another interesting phenomenon in Melatonin. 28:32 In the gray there, 28:34 you'll see the normal Melatonin's peak at night here 28:39 this nice big peak here... 28:41 pause... 28:42 but now see this orange line here... 28:44 this kind of dotted orange line... 28:46 adolescence... the teenagers... high-school-age kids... 28:51 their Melatonin level shifts forward couple of hours 28:56 and what happens is, 28:58 ever see why they don't want to go to bed at night? 29:02 The Melatonin hasn't come up yet... 29:04 they're not sleepy yet 29:06 and they want to stay up late at night. 29:08 The problem isn't on that end, 29:11 the problem seems to be on the other end 29:13 because now... when the rest of the adult world 29:17 has them scheduled to get up and get going in the morning, 29:21 they're in the middle of their deep Melatonin-sleep cycle 29:24 and they need that sleep 29:25 and what we end up doing here 29:28 is cutting off the sleep back here 29:32 because the alarm clock goes off... it's time to start school 29:35 and so, we're actually cutting off this... 29:38 all of this sleep that would be going on out here 29:41 because we didn't go to bed till then 29:43 and now we cut it off here... 29:44 we've really shortened the night's sleep 29:46 and we've cut off that late... you know, that morning sleep 29:51 which is where your REM sleep is so important for the 29:54 many parts of learning and functioning... 29:57 ideally, we would start high school at 9 or 10 in the morning 30:01 and then extend it later in the afternoon to get in the hours 30:06 but that would be the ideal for learning. 30:10 There have been school systems that have tried that 30:13 with excellent results. 30:15 One of them... everybody's grade point went up... 30:18 most students went up above one letter... 30:21 you know, if they were a C student, 30:23 they became a B student... 30:24 if they were a B student, they became an A student. 30:26 ACT and SAT scores also went up significantly 30:31 with switching to this later cycle 30:35 because now they were learning in the right place. 30:39 The brain is essential for learning 30:43 and the sleep is essential for the brain. 30:47 So, let's take a look at what really is sleep... 30:49 what is going on there. 30:51 Here is a diagram of what happens in sleep. 30:56 So, we have here levels of sleep. 30:58 At the top level right here is being awake. 31:02 Now, as we move down in here, the very first level here... 31:06 this next level just below wake is what we call: REM Sleep. 31:10 REM stands for: Rapid Eye Movement 31:14 and it was observed that 31:16 at certain times when people are sleeping, 31:19 their eyelids are closed... but underneath their closed eyelids, 31:22 their eyeballs are darting back and forth 31:25 and around and all over the place 31:26 it's just this jerking random movements of the eyes 31:30 and so they call it: Rapid Eye Movement. 31:33 They don't know exactly why the eyes do that 31:36 during this particular sleep 31:37 but that's a normal physiological thing 31:40 to have this rapid eye movement 31:42 in this one particular phase of sleep. 31:44 In the other parts of sleep, the eyes are resting quietly 31:50 and not doing this rapid eye movement, 31:51 so, we call those: Non-REM Sleep. 31:54 So, we have REM Sleep and Non-REM Sleep 31:59 and the REM Sleep is divided into stages... 32:03 Stage one... two... three... four... 32:05 as we go deeper and deeper into very deep sleep here. 32:08 So, when we start off the night, 32:10 we go through these cycles of sleep... 32:12 they're about an hour and a half... 32:14 about 90 minutes will go through a cycle 32:16 and then come back up 32:18 and then another 90-minute cycle and come back up 32:21 another 90-minute cycle and on through there 32:23 we'll do this approximately 90-minute cycles here 32:26 through the night till we've had gotten our eight hours 32:29 and it's time to wake up and stay awake. 32:31 There can be some brief awakenings... 32:34 these really brief ones... 32:36 you probably don't remember in the morning 32:38 and didn't realize you woke up 32:39 and thought you slept the whole night 32:41 but there was actually... 32:42 if we measure the brain waves there... 32:44 there's this little peak here. 32:45 So, what is the brain doing during these various stages? 32:49 We can hook up wires and measure the electrical activity 32:53 and something we call an EEG... 32:57 here is a picture here... on the top here, we can see here 33:01 this is the EEG of a normal awake brain... 33:06 they're small... low voltage 33:08 and they're random all over the place 33:10 not in particular frequencies... 33:12 they're just darting everywhere 33:14 and that is the normal, conscious electrical activity 33:17 as you think "thoughts" 33:19 this neuron is sending a message here and there 33:21 and you're getting sensory input in... 33:23 you're doing motor things, 33:25 you're thinking about things 33:26 and there's all of these different little electrical 33:27 activities just bouncing all over the place 33:30 and this is what it looks like. 33:32 There is a place... those are called: Beta waves. 33:36 There is a state called: Alpha waves... 33:38 we find when someone's very relaxed and meditative... 33:42 peaceful state of mind... 33:43 they're at the beach watching the waves... 33:46 everything is happy 33:48 and they're not stressing their mind over anything 33:50 and these Alpha waves are very beneficial 33:53 but they're not sleep... 33:54 the person is conscious... 33:55 and able to think about things 33:57 and talk and respond appropriately... 34:00 sense the environment... 34:01 enjoy the beauty of the scenery. 34:03 Here's what REM sleep looks at... this highest level 34:07 and if you look at it, one thing you'll notice is... 34:11 it looks almost identical to the "awake state" 34:14 and really if you're looking at the EEG, 34:17 you really can't tell the difference between the awake 34:21 and the... the REM sleep. 34:25 This is where dreaming takes place... 34:28 dreaming is that state... 34:30 very important for organizing creativity 34:36 so you sort everything out... get the new thoughts going 34:40 and during dreams, you're sort of living through 34:43 these random pieces being pulled from here to there 34:46 and connected in unusual ways 34:49 that you were never connected before in your life 34:52 but it's just one of those things 34:54 that happens usually when you wake up 34:56 the dream that REM sleep dream passes 34:58 but that's what the electrical activity looks like 35:02 during REM sleep. 35:04 Now, as we move into the non-REM sleep, 35:07 we get a much more regular... 35:10 Stage one: you see it's a little bit... 35:12 much more regular, 35:13 it looks a little bit like the REM sleep 35:15 but we're starting to become more regular 35:16 and if you look at the closing paradigm, 35:18 you can see that this definitely moving... 35:20 well, they call them Theta waves... 35:22 and as we go deeper into there... these Theta waves, 35:25 we get these things called: Sleep Spindles here. 35:28 It's like it goes: Bishhhht... 35:29 and every few seconds... Bishhhht... 35:32 Bishhhht... 35:33 and we get these K waves these little flumps in there... 35:36 fascinating activity there what's going on... 35:40 it's actually memories from the day 35:43 being stored in your brain... it's fantastic. 35:47 As we go deeper down here you get these Delta waves 35:51 really big slow wave activity spreading through the brain. 35:56 They're not random things going from here to there... 36:02 these Delta waves... beautiful... 36:05 they start right here in your frontal lobe 36:07 you know, where your conscious thought 36:10 and everything is right here... 36:11 they start right there... and shooooo... 36:13 they spread back over the brain... 36:15 it's sort of like, during the day and conscious... 36:18 there's random things going everywhere... 36:20 but imagine yourself at the... a large crowd and audience 36:25 at a football show and they do a wave... 36:27 you know, one side people stand up and raise their hands 36:30 and then sit down... 36:32 and the people next to them... 36:33 and as they go... they just spread... 36:35 there's a wave of people going all around the room... 36:37 makes a circle around here and it goes again. 36:39 That's what this is. 36:41 Every neuron in the brain is firing in sequence 36:44 from the front to the back. 36:45 It's not sending their axons here... 36:47 they're each firing electrolytes... 36:49 all they're trying to get this high voltage 36:51 but slow wave activity... fantastic... 36:55 so, this is what's taking place 36:58 during these really deep cycles here... 37:01 these really deep cycles that happen 37:05 first thing in the night... 37:06 so important for restoring your body 37:08 and getting health 37:10 but there's also some deep cleaning going on there. 37:15 Pause... 37:18 You know, during the day your brain builds up toxins... 37:21 waste products... metabolic by-products... 37:26 drugs might be there... 37:27 all kinds of stuff builds up around there 37:30 and these neurons can't function well 37:32 with all of that other stuff contaminating them... 37:35 the various waste products and everything. 37:36 We need a clean wash water to flush and clean that all out 37:40 and it's the most amazing thing that happens 37:43 as these Delta waves start coming across the brain... 37:46 if you imagine your brain tissue 37:48 looking at... like a picture of a city 37:51 and there's city block with all of these streets 37:53 and avenues crisscrossing back and forth 37:56 and there's a river on each side here 37:58 one.. a river of clean water over here 38:00 and one... the drain river over here. 38:03 What happens during this Delta-wave sleep? 38:06 If you could imagine at night every building in the city 38:11 shrunk down to about 60% of its normal size... 38:14 that means all the streets widened up 38:17 and suddenly you got these huge wide spaces between everything 38:21 and clear clean water... cerebral spinal fluid 38:25 pours out of clean water... flushes through the brain 38:28 washing all of the debris... the waste product... 38:32 the toxins... everything is washed out into the other river 38:36 and washed off down and out to the sea to get rid of it 38:39 and for this 90 minutes here while you're in that deep cycle, 38:44 all of the brain has just opened wide open 38:46 flushing this clear cerebral spinal fluid... 38:49 just cleaning the whole thing out 38:50 and then, very shortly, it goes through another cycle. 38:54 You know, it expands back out 38:56 but then it does it again... it shrinks down 38:58 and the water flushes it through again... 39:01 we've got another power wash here... 39:03 very, very important to get those power washes 39:05 cleaning the brain. 39:08 You know, a little thing to think about what's... 39:10 imagine the brain as an office 39:12 and in the office, you've got this desk 39:15 and during the day everything you thought and heard 39:18 and imagined came pouring in 39:20 and it all just kind of piled up on your desk... 39:22 everything you heard... everything you did... 39:24 it's just... everything is there. 39:25 Important... unimportant stuff... 39:27 everything is there... 39:28 at night, it's closing time... 39:31 time to go to sleep 39:32 and it's like you pull down the shades... 39:34 put out the "Closed" sign you become unconscious 39:37 but the cleaning crew comes in, the Janitors... 39:41 and they do this deep cleaning, 39:42 washing... cleaning... crevices... 39:44 everything in the office 39:45 but on your desk... you've got important stuff among those 39:51 as you sort through the papers, 39:52 here's some really important stuff... 39:53 maybe you were learning to ride a bicycle that day 39:57 or maybe you were learning to play a song on the piano... 39:59 all of that activity... those motor activities 40:02 is important stuff you want to save... 40:04 by-the-way, your frontal lobe actually controls and sorts out 40:08 and knows what's important and what's not 40:09 and if you... it's important... you can actually save it 40:13 and these... these bzzz... bzzzz... 40:20 these little sleep spindles... 40:22 that's actually passing from your Hippocampus... 40:25 your short-term memory up to your cortex 40:28 where you got to put in this array of this complex cortex 40:33 that's doing everything important for you 40:35 and remembering everything... 40:37 your long-term storage... it's all saved there 40:40 and it's this little bzzz... bzzz... 40:42 they can actually measure them 40:44 someone that's been working hard on a piano or whatever... 40:47 it goes to those parts of the brain 40:49 where you would store that activity... 40:50 they can make sure all this is going there 40:52 and if you had other types of things... it's going there 40:55 and it goes to the right places to save what you need there. 40:57 It's sort of like a filing cabinet in the office, 41:00 you take all the important things 41:01 and you're putting them in the right folder 41:03 so you can find them again. 41:04 A person laying the... 41:05 they can take and practice at the piano 41:07 over and over and over 41:09 and the piece still seems like it's not quite right... 41:10 but they're doing their best to practice it... 41:12 they go to sleep at night... get a good sound sleep... 41:16 it all gets filed perfectly... 41:18 next morning they go out to the piano 41:21 and suddenly now, it just flows. 41:23 Why? because they're not pulling it from the short-term... 41:26 it's already stored in the long coordinated memory... 41:29 the Cerebellum's coordinating it... 41:31 everything's working good there 41:32 but it's not just important to save the important stuff, 41:35 we've got to get rid of the unimportant stuff. 41:40 I mean, you probably... when you got into... 41:45 went into the store or something, 41:47 you remember where you parked your car out in the parking lot. 41:49 Well, that's important to remember a few hours later 41:52 when you want to find your car, 41:53 but you don't need to remember next year 41:57 where you parked it today. 41:58 That's unimportant information and it's sort of like, 42:02 you store all of this stuff on a flash drive 42:04 and the flash drive is full of everything you've heard and seen 42:08 unimportant stuff... 42:09 what we need to do for the next day... 42:11 you can only hold so much on the flash drive 42:13 so, what do you do? 42:14 You go through and delete it, you clean it out 42:16 and we find that up in the first and-second-stage sleep here, 42:20 we're actually... go through 42:24 and we can actually here... store... 42:27 we're actually cleaning up the flash drive 42:29 here in the Hippocampus... 42:31 we're just cleaning out the flash drive... 42:33 getting rid of all of the unimportant stuff... deleting it 42:34 by now, we've got the desk cleaned off... 42:37 we've saved the important stuff and filed it... 42:38 we've deleted the unimportant stuff 42:41 and now it's time for REM sleep. 42:43 Now is the time for creativity... 42:45 your desk is clean... the office is washed... 42:47 there's nothing to distract 42:49 and the brain can actually start taking different things 42:52 and come up with creative stuff... 42:55 all kinds of... the important... 42:58 the things that make life valuable... 42:59 happen in this REM sleep. 43:01 Lot of people manage sleep deprivation with Caffeine. 43:08 What is it really doing here? 43:11 In this graph right here, 43:14 we're looking at a couple of things right here... 43:19 there is a substance in your brain called: Adenosine. 43:25 Adenosine builds up... starting in the morning 43:31 your Adenosine level starts building up 43:33 and it builds up through the day in the brain 43:36 and when the Adenosine level is high, 43:38 you feel tired. 43:40 Tiredness is Adenosine being built up in the brain 43:46 and the more tired you get... 43:48 is because you've got the Adenosine built up... 43:52 that is the function of it there 43:56 and is it... there's special receptors on all the cells, 44:00 they know Adenosine is building up 44:02 and they know... they're telling you, "We're tired. " 44:08 Well, the REM line there... there is this ability 44:14 that's sort of... I want to call it a wakefulness drive, 44:17 Cortisol and all the things contributed to it... 44:19 it's... kind of starts off low in the morning, 44:22 gets stronger and stronger by the middle of the afternoon 44:24 and then it fades away. 44:25 Melatonin is what's going to trigger that change right there 44:30 but Caffeine is going to alter that. 44:34 If you look at Adenosine and Caffeine, 44:37 you'll see here these... in the center of it here, 44:42 this part right here looks very, very similar to this part here 44:47 and indeed, Caffeine and Adenosine 44:52 can both fit into the same little Receptor there 44:57 but it's like a key that fits in 44:59 but it doesn't quite have all the right notches on it 45:03 so, it fits in the keyhole but you can't turn the lock 45:06 and that's what's here... so Adenosine... 45:09 so, Caffeine pushes Adenosine out of the way... 45:13 it gets in there... 45:14 but it doesn't tell you you're tired... 45:16 now, suddenly, I'm feeling awake... 45:18 and so, because of that now... 45:24 that's where we get the lift from Caffeine... 45:27 it's displacing Adenosine. 45:29 Here's a very fascinating picture right here. 45:32 The top picture is a normal brain 45:36 with all of the Adenosine in there. 45:40 You need Adenosine to sleep 45:44 but if you go in and... with Caffeine... 45:48 particularly Caffeine in the afternoon... 45:53 although there's even a residual from morning coffee 45:57 but Caffeine later in the day 46:00 and especially Caffeine in the evening, 46:03 is going to really displace all of that Adenosine 46:06 so, you're going to feel awake... alert... 46:08 and you can just keep going but now it's time to go to sleep 46:11 and you want to go to sleep and what happens to your sleep? 46:15 You see the difference in the activity... 46:17 all that bright yellow is actually... 46:20 because remember sleep is a reactive state of the brain 46:23 and here this very active state of the brain... 46:27 you can see it there with all of the Adenosine 46:31 and so it's going all that normal sleep activity, 46:33 it's going in the deep... the Delta-wave sleep, 46:36 it's doing the deep cleaning, 46:37 it's storing stuff... 46:39 it's deleting your flash drive, 46:40 it's getting everything ready for the next day 46:42 but with Caffeine, we've displaced all that Adenosine 46:46 so the cells aren't going on and doing the sleep activity 46:50 that they... they need. 46:51 Remember, that's the normal picture. 46:57 Here is the sleep cycle on Caffeine. 47:02 Notice, we're barely even touching the Stage 3 47:06 not into Stage 4 at all, just briefly there 47:10 so, those nice deep cleaning cycles... they're gone 47:14 and look at all of the brief awakenings here all night long 47:18 and it keeps going... look what happened to the REM sleep, 47:22 we barely got a few specks of REM sleep 47:24 through the entire night here 47:25 and again, bouncing around here, so... 47:29 now, you may not feel these brief awakenings, 47:31 you might think, "Well, I was asleep" 47:33 but your brain was. 47:35 I mean, this brain right here 47:37 is not doing what this brain was doing back here. 47:41 This is what you want your sleep cycle to look like... 47:45 this is your sleep cycle on Caffeine. 47:48 You're not getting the same preparation for the next day, 47:53 you're not storing the same material, 47:55 you're not cleaning out your flash drive, 47:57 you're not doing the deep cleaning 47:58 and, of course, this is a real simplification, 48:01 there's a lot of complex things that are still happening 48:03 and we're still learning more about it 48:05 but you can see that Caffeine is a real detriment 48:10 to a normal sleep cycle. 48:13 If you want to have a brain 48:15 that's actually going to function right 48:17 and do everything right, 48:18 you're going to need to get rid of the Caffeine, 48:23 you know, we've been advised for many decades now 48:27 that Caffeine is something that needs to be eliminated 48:30 and removed from our diets entirely. 48:34 You know, it's one of the things that you're going to have to do 48:38 if you want to have a normal, good sleep cycle... 48:42 if you want to have normal neurons, 48:44 if we have a normal functioning cortex... frontal lobes... 48:50 all of that depends on a good night's sleep 48:52 and good night's sleep depends on being Caffeine free. 48:56 Just remember the difference 48:58 between those two pictures there. 48:59 Pause... 49:02 What about sleeping pills to help you sleep? 49:04 Do they overcome Caffeine? 49:06 No, sleeping pills... is sort of like 49:10 a mild version of General Anesthesia. 49:15 Now, when you go into the operating room 49:19 and they give you an Anesthetic agent 49:22 to make you unconscious so you don't feel pain, 49:26 you don't feel the surgery 49:28 and the surgeon can go ahead and operate easily 49:31 and finish the surgery without you being in pain 49:35 or thrashing around... anything... 49:36 your brain is just turned off. 49:40 Remember, sleep is a very active state... 49:43 there's a lot of things happening, 49:45 Anesthetics go to the Neurons and anesthetize them, 49:51 they put them out, they just knock them out, 49:53 they stop working there 49:55 and in this knock-out state, they're not sleeping, 49:58 they're not doing anything, you're not conscious, 50:01 you're asleep... 50:03 but that's what the sleeping pills are doing. 50:06 So, you're not awake but you're still deprived of sleep, 50:12 you're not actually getting the sleep because 50:16 the sleeping pills are just anesthetizing you. 50:19 Pause... 50:24 What about alcohol? 50:25 A lot of people think that a glass of wine at bedtime 50:30 is an ideal way... nightcap... that gets you ready 50:36 and helps you fall asleep 50:37 and it's just the way to end the day... 50:40 calm everything down and put you to sleep. 50:43 What does alcohol do to the brain? 50:46 Alcohol is going to just... 50:48 it's going to put it out. 50:51 It's like the sleeping pill. 50:54 Alcohol shuts down the brain depriving you of sleep 51:00 particularly REM sleep. 51:03 With alcohol... an alcoholic is very, very deprived of REM sleep 51:11 because it knocks out REM sleep 51:13 even more than some of the other phases of sleep. 51:16 There's almost no REM sleep at all in an alcoholic. 51:21 In the Emergency Room we sometimes get alcoholics 51:25 in various kinds of crisis... 51:26 what we call: Acute Alcohol withdrawal... 51:29 it can go into various DTs and stuff 51:32 and one of the aspects of acute alcohol withdrawal 51:36 is hallucinations. 51:39 Hallucinations... it's like your REM sleep... 51:44 all of these various, you know, bizarre images 51:50 and thoughts and things coming together 51:52 and colliding in various ways 51:54 and during the alcohol withdrawal, 51:58 the brain which has been so deprived of REM sleep... 52:01 now the alcohol is off... 52:03 the alcohol is all worn off 52:04 and now they're in this withdrawal state 52:06 and there's like the brain says, 52:08 "We're going to catch up on REM sleep" 52:10 and it starts going into REM sleep while they're still awake 52:14 and they're seeing people that aren't there 52:17 and snakes crawling up the wall 52:18 and spiders crawling across their bed 52:21 and all kinds of stuff like that 52:23 and it's very dysphoric type of REM that's coming back there 52:29 while they're awake in these hallucinations 52:31 and we usually give people sedatives to put the brain out 52:36 because these are so harmful. 52:37 Of course, with the alcohol withdrawal, they go to seizures 52:40 and a lot of other things 52:41 so we want to usually knock that down 52:43 and prevent that 52:45 but alcohol is really 52:48 not the choice if you want a good night's sleep. 52:52 I know it's not the popular culture right now 52:56 but the reality is: Alcohol will not give you 53:00 the sleep you need. 53:01 What are the things that can help you get the sleep you need? 53:05 Adequate exercise during the day. 53:08 Many of us go to bed... we're exhausted mentally 53:12 but we physically haven't had the exercise. 53:15 You need a good workout at the gym 53:17 or if you've got a physical job, 53:18 you've got a real blessing there. 53:20 Physical exercise of an adequate amount during the day 53:24 when you come up to bedtime, 53:26 the muscles and the other parts of the body are tired enough 53:30 that they're going to say, 53:31 "Okay, we're ready to shift into sleep... " 53:34 and the brain and synchrony with that says, 53:38 "Yeah, let's go to sleep now... " 53:39 and the various parts all come together 53:42 if you really good sound sleep, if you've had enough exercise. 53:45 Going to bed on an empty stomach is important. 53:49 If you're just going to have a large meal 53:53 and you haven't digested that meal yet, 53:56 well, the brain is sending all these messages down 53:59 through various ganglions 54:01 and now, we've got to work on the stomach... 54:04 put out the digestive... 54:05 you're doing all of this work down here 54:07 and it's like, "Hey, the brain doesn't... 54:09 the brain controls all of that. " 54:11 You know, you don't know... 54:12 decide when to contract your stomach, the brain decides that. 54:14 You don't decide when to move it down the intestines, 54:17 you don't decide when to go into the colon, 54:19 you know, you don't decide all these things, 54:21 they're all done automatically by your brain 54:23 but right now, we want the brain to go in a sleep cycle. 54:28 Well, the sleep cycle is going to be mixed up 54:30 because the stomach's telling, "Hey, we've got... 54:33 there's lot of food, we've got to do something about it here 54:35 and it's sending messages up 54:36 and so, there's this conflict of the digestive system 54:39 telling the brain, "Hey, we can't go to sleep, 54:41 we've got to keep... you've got to keep processing this... " 54:43 and the brain says, "Okay, well, let's send this up there" 54:45 the sleep cycle down there 54:48 is not, you know, going to be as good 54:50 in that condition there. 54:51 Cool, dark, lack of things working into it to interrupt it. 55:00 If you'd like to read some more about this, 55:04 there's an excellent book... came out about a year ago, 55:08 "Why We Sleep" 55:09 Matthew Walker is a PhD who specializes in sleep studies. 55:13 He is one of the Scientists that has discovered 55:16 much of the recent information about what's happening 55:20 during the time we sleep 55:21 I've been through a lot of his work 55:23 but he's put together a very readable book here 55:26 that was really... yeah... 55:28 if you're interested to know more about sleep, 55:30 I would highly recommend that as a... something valuable there. 55:35 Pause... 55:39 A final thought here, 55:42 delicate nerves of the brain 55:44 are the only channel through which God communicates with man. 55:49 You think about that for a minute... 55:53 we want all those neurons in the brain 55:57 to be doing exactly what God designed them to do 56:02 and one of those things is going to be able to commune with God 56:07 and you need the frontal lobe... all of the other lobes... 56:12 all of these parts synapsing. 56:14 You need the neurons clean 56:16 so they can respond appropriately. 56:18 Everything about sleep 56:21 is essential for a normal functioning brain. 56:24 The sleep-deprived brain is going to make it more difficult. 56:28 A Caffeinated brain is going to find it really difficult. 56:32 An alcohol brain that's intoxicated... 56:36 a brain with various mind-altering drugs, you know, 56:40 sleeping pill... all of these things that come on there, 56:43 they alter the functioning of the neurons in the brain 56:46 are disturbing that delicate balance in there. 56:50 Remember, there's different little neurotransmitters 56:52 all over the place connecting all of the parts of the brain. 56:55 We want our brains to be as clear and finely tuned 56:59 and as ready as they can be to be sensitive 57:04 to the voice of God speaking to us. 57:06 We want to have a clear mind to pray... to think... 57:13 to put our thoughts together. 57:14 Well, we need to have stored the important stuff, 57:18 cleaned out the unimportant stuff. 57:20 We want the creative parts of the mind working well 57:22 and now, God's got a temple that He can come and dwell in. 57:27 Pause... 57:30 The door to the tabernacle is inside you. 57:32 God's placed it there... that's the temple He dwells in, 57:37 it's in this brain with these neurons and sleep. 57:41 My prayer is that you will have sleep... a sound sleep 57:44 and a clear mind 57:46 and God will bless you by communicating with you. |
Revised 2021-02-09