What is Sleep and Why it is Important
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What is Sleep and Why it is Important
Particularly for Drivers, Heavy Industry, and Emergency Responders
Just a good night's sleep...
You know you need it. You know everyone who cares about you is telling you to get it.
Yet, more often than not... when your schedule gets crunched... it is the first thing to get sacrificed.
But what happens when you sacrifice sleep over, and over, and over again?
What happens when you are not only not getting enough sleep... but are truly sleep deprived?
What makes sleep so important anyways?
And when you are working a physically demanding job, or working with heavy machinery, how does a lack of sleep impact your job performance, or worse, put others lives at risk?
This blog post begins answering those questions, starting with identifying WHY sleep is so important.
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How Sleep Works (Biologically)
We spend a lot of our lives sleeping... in fact about 33% of our lives is juuuust snoozin'. But while sleeping may not be "productive", it most certainly is not "passive". You may lie there motionless with your eyes closed, chest gently rising and falling, and snoring like chainsaw... but there’s actually A LOT happening in our blood, brains, and bodies!
Stages of Sleep
Given that humans have always dreamed dreams, I don't know why ANYONE would think that the brain "shuts down" when we sleep. But I guess denying the existence of the unconscious makes even smart people reach some pretty silly conclusions.
Your brain is not in "off mode" when you sleep... or at least not for MOST of the time. It goes through the "5 phases every 70-120 minutes. If you ever slept through the night, there is a 99.99999999% chance you experienced every one of the stages:
Wake: You are awake, but still a sleepy head all tuckered out from a hard days work.
Stage 1 "Light Sleep": This is those first 1-5 minutes when you fall asleep. The only physical change is that everything begins to slow down: brain waves, heart rate, breathing, eye movement. If your partner has ever woken you up for snoring and you insist that you weren't asleep, you were probably in this stage.
Stage 2 "Deeper Sleep": In this stage your body kinda "settles into sleeping". Your breathing and body temperature drop and reach a rhythmic state, and your brain will have random bursts of activity, also known as "sleep spindles" (your brain does this to help your memory). As you age, you spend less time in stage 3 and more time in stage 2.
Stage 3 "Deep Non-REM Sleep": This is the sleep eeeeeeveryone wants. It's the stage where everything slows down the most. Your heartbeat and breathing slow to a crawl and your muscles relax the most, allowing them to recover. Without it, no amount of sleep feels refreshing. It is the hardest stage to wake some one up from (loud noises aren't going to cut it), and that is by design: your body does not want you to be awake... it wants you to recharge. IF someone is woken from this stage, they will wake up very disoriented.
Stage 4 "Rapid Eye Movement" (REM): While this is not a "restful sleep" it is still a "necessary sleep"... and the most fun. Whole stage 3 is the most "dormant", the sleeper suddenly has an increase in heartbeat, breathing, brainwave activity, and the eyes move around while the eyelids are closed. All this happens for one reason only: DREAMS. We only dream in this state, which is theorized to help our memory, comprehension, eyesight, and unconscious processing.
Timing Mechanisms: Homeostasis and Circadian Rhythm
Your circadian rhythm is the internal, instinctual, biological clock that tells you "hey, we should be going to bed right about now". It tells you more than just when to sleep... it also helps regulate your hormones and metabolism... but also is why you sometimes wake up without an alarm clock. You barely notice throughout your day to day, but if you ever get on a plane and travel several time zones away, it gets all out of wack. Thankfully, it uses the actual time on top of environmental (light, temperature) and social cues (dinner time) to adjust you to wherever you are.
"Sleep wake homeostasis" (also known as "sleep drive") is your brain DEMANDING you sleep. It reminds your body that it needs sleep and will increase the depth of sleep based on how strained and tired you are. It is notoriously affected by bright, blue light (like smart phones), but medical conditions and what you choose to eat and drink (ex: medication, caffeinated drinks) can also mess with it. If you like camping, your sleep drive is why you are sleepy by 8pm around a campfire, but could never force yourself to go to bed that early back at home.
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A Human, Practical Perspective on Sleep
But you wanna know the craziest thing about sleep?
Scientist and researchers have no idea WHY we (or other animals) sleep!
Every theory, including the ones mentioned above, are just that... theories... each with their logical flaws that keep them from becoming scientific laws.
All they know for certain is that humans get very, very sleepy, and falling asleep seems to be the perfect cure.
Which, when you step back and really think about it, sleep is CRAZY. Like, so weird. The comedian Pete Holmes has a great stand up bit on it (watch it here). No matter what you do or what you eat, your body needs to sleep.
On the one hand, it sounds like a disease that incapacitates every human that ever lived. But on the other hand, it is one of the things that makes living wonderful:
It reminds us that we have limitations
It reminds us that our time on earth is limited
It reminds us that life is full or work and rest
It lets our imagination run wild come alive
It connects us to the unconscious
It forces us to rely on others and form community
Not to mention, it feels SO DAMN GOOD... and provides so many benefits.
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(Some of) The Benefits of Sleeping
Spoiler alert: there's a lot.
Let's start with the brain. After a whole day of activity, its glycogen drops and adenosine increases. Sleep reverses this, enabling the brain to have "brain plasticity", which enables us to quickly adapt to "new inputs". That sounds tech-y, but really it just is all the information and situations you encounter in a day, everything from getting a starbucks coffee to performing CPR. When we don’t get enough sleep, it can really disrupt things. making it harder to think clearly, understand things quickly, and respond appropriately.
Next, your immune system. People that regularly get less than 7 hours of sleep are 3x more likely to catch diseases. Lack of sleep reduced NK cell activity, the cells responsible for fighting tumors, to 72% of normal. For those that got less than 4 hours of sleep for just one night developed inflammatory cytokines (lead to heart and metabolism issues) and after 6 days produced just 50% of the standard amount of antibodies (the things that fight off infection).
Third, your muscles. Tons of weight lifters gorge themselves on protein to reap huge gains, but sleep is just as necessary for muscle growth. When anyone does vigorous exercise or labor, there are microscopic tears in their muscles. Our body repairs their tears by growing cells, which mature into new muscle fibers, which increase muscle growth. But... if you don't sleep, then your muscles are missing out on the Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which is released as we sleep. They also miss out on glycogen, protein synthesis, and just relaxing from not being used!
Finally, your emotional and mental health. Studies are lacking on explanations for why sleep helps us regulate emotionally and process information, but the findings are not up for debate. Lack of sleep is connected to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, memory loss, mood swings, irritability, stress, difficulty focusing, lack of motivation, impulsivity. Without sleep, your brain changes and cannot function properly.
in summary, your brain, emotions, soul, and body really, really, REALLY like sleeping. (In fact, some researchers consider it more important than diet and exercise to your overall health.
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Why Sleep is Important for Workers and Responders
Think about the tough situations we deal with every day. We have to make quick choices, work long hours, and handle hard tasks. Now think about facing these challenges when we do not get enough sleep.
That’s not a good mix, right?
When you are handling hazardous materials, operating large machinery, tending to the sick and wounded, or placing yourself in life-threatening circumstances ... you can't afford to be at anything less than 100%.
That’s why getting good sleep is very important. It’s not just about the time we spend working; it’s about being our best, both in our heads and bodies.
EMT Responders: You might be used to crisis but whoever you are helping probably isn't. A lack of sleep will make it that much harder to stay calm, patient, and helpful.
Tradesmen: Measure twice and cut once, right? Well, without sleep, its not measure 4 times, or you risk having your roof/tub/car nothing close to level.
Drivers and Operators of Heavy Machinery: If you are behind the wheel of a vehicle, something that causes over 50,000 American deaths a year, your focus and reaction times need to be at their best.
Nurses: Charts are certainly a guard rail, but if you stack up long shifts and are tired , it is far too easy to accidentally double the dose of an serious medication for a patient.
Essential Workers: If you are important at the workplace, then constantly calling out sick due to lack of sleep isn't a great strategy for success.
Firefighters: When you need to carry bodies out of a burning building, you really do not want fatigued muscles in desperate need of rest.
Hazmat Workers: Not really an occupation that can afford mistakes. But it is easy to skip an essential step
Conclusion: What Happens When You Don't Get Enough Sleep?
Sleep is important for humans. We don't know why we need it, but we do know that we DO need it. Our bodies are built for it, evidenced not just by all the biological processes but also the undeniable benefits.
So what happens when we DON'T get enough sleep? In the next blog post, we'll discuss more.
