Stay Young By Going To Bed Early

 

via

Every morning that I wake up for work I wish I had gone to bed earlier the night before. My friends with kids especially feel that way when their little ones bound into their rooms with the energy of a Tasmanian devil at 6am. Why do kids get up so early? How do they have so much energy without coffee? It's always seemed like a mystery- but for some reason, here I am at 11pm determined to solve it. It's just too fitting.

It turns out our biological clocks are real. In the world of science and medicine it's called pacemaker circadian rhythms- a cluster of neurons in the pineal gland running on perpetual 24 hour cycles. They throw out signals to our bodies indicating during which intervals we should be sleeping and during which intervals we should be awake.

 

via

Clinical trials in which participants spent 33-36 days in time-isolation helped prove the role of pacemaker circadian neurons. Even with no clue as to the date or time of day, the participants spent appropriate time sleeping and awake throughout the experiment. (article here)

The bottom line is that we were designed to get sleep- and a specified amount of it. Since most of us can't sleep-in every day to obtain our required hours, the easiest way to get adequate sleep is by going to bed early. Like we did when we were kids. Find a time that works for you and guarantees 7-10 hours. The first few nights will be hard. Don't break the habit on the weekends! Pretty soon you'll be crashing every night around the same time. Remember falling asleep on the couch in your pajamas? That will happen again, so you'd better find someone strong to carry you to bed. 

So we've established that kids are more in tuned with their pineal glands, or at least they don't fight them to the extent that adults do. They listen to their sleepy bodies and give in instead of binge watching Netflix until 4am. But how does this keep them young and energetic? 

Enter the Duke-NUS study from Singapore:

"[Researchers]...found evidence that the less older adults sleep, the faster their brains age".

 

via

Are you currently digesting the thought that your brain is possibly the size of a pea? Me too.

We've talked about the implications of metabolism in aging but perhaps lack of sleep is another trigger. It is an inevitable part of life as we age. Even in the relatively stress free lives of our very ancient ancestors we know lack of sleep occurred primarily because we know they procreated. 

Babies = no sleep. 

So that means as you age you will go through periods of little sleep. 

Or perhaps I should say it this way: as you go through periods of little sleep, you age.