io9: sleep

Deprive Yourself of Sleep and Your Neurons Will Get You High

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:00:00 PDT

People who are sleep-deprived often report getting a "second wind" where they suddenly wake up and feel great — though they are still too fatigued to do any major problem-solving. A group of researchers have discovered there's a good reason for this. Sleep deprivation floods your brain with dopamine, the very same hormone that amphetamines like crystal meth shoot into your neural receptors.

So basically you don't need that speed to stay awake. You just need to, well, stay awake. The researchers speculate that amphetamines emulate the body's natural response to sleeplessness, which is to boost your alertness with extra dopamine. Speed tricks your body into thinking it needs a boost after a sleepless night.

But there's a good reason why people don't get addicted to staying up all night. According to Science Daily:

The rise in dopamine following sleep deprivation may promote wakefulness to compensate for sleep loss. "However, the concurrent decline in cognitive performance, which is associated with the dopamine increases, suggests that the adaptation is not sufficient to overcome the cognitive deterioration induced by sleep deprivation and may even contribute to it," said study author [Dr. Nora] Volkow.

So I guess the message is that if you want to stay up all night, and keep that cognitive performance going, you'll have to turn to drugs. Or maybe you could just get some sleep.

One Sleepless Night Increases Dopamine in the Human Brain [Science Daily]

Your Sleep Patterns Are Controlled by Television

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:00:13 PST

Human sleep patterns were once controlled by circadian rhythms governed by day and night. But now, according to a new study, almost everyone in the United States has a sleep pattern that's controlled by when they watch TV. A massive survey on time management conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics shows that most people watch TV between 11 - 11:15, dropping off to sleep when they switch the tube off. The hour when nighttime falls affects this pattern very little. Human sleep patterns are therefore more malleable than believed, and it's possible people could change them as easily as changing channels.

According to the authors of the study, which comes out this week in the Journal of Labor Economics:

While natural daylight patterns have some effect on people's life patterns, the demands of global business—market openings, etc—and regular television schedule demarcate the boundaries of most Americans' lives . . . Individuals in early television zones (Central and Mountain) are 6.4 percentage points less likely to be watching television between 11 and 11:15 p.m. than those in later zones, but if the sunset is pushed back by an hour the probability of watching TV at 11pm only increases by about one percentage point. The implications for people who want to change their sleep patterns — to get up earlier, say, or go to bed at a regular time — are enormous. If you are somebody who watches TV, you can simply turn the TV off earlier and give your body a cue that it's time to sleep.

Another possibility is to change your working hours. The researchers say that along with TV, people's big sleep cue is time zone, especially as it relates to when you get to work or go home:

If you are in the "professional service" sector (finance, information, business services), you are more likely to follow the time zone cue, while you are in other services sector (education, health, leisure, and hospitality), you are probably more responsive to television cues.

Changing when you go to work within your time zone might be another way to trick your body into sleeping at a different time.

I love it when science actually backs up common sense. Though the idea that our circadian rhythms have been replaced by late-night TV rhythms is sort of creepy.

Early to Bed and Early to Rise . . . Depends on the TV Schedule in Your Time Zone [Eurekalert]

Tinkering with the Sleep Gene

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:30:34 PST

Why do our brains need sleep? And can we switch off the genes that make sleep necessary? Medical researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that they've located a gene that regulates sleep, and if they can switch it on and off it's possible that you'll be able to take a pill to eliminate your desire to snooze. Unfortunately, the researchers' work also shows that doing this might drive you insane or reduce your mental abilities dramatically.

The scientists got their data from an unusual source: worms. When worms are in a state called "lethargus" (the worm equivalent of snoozing), their brains undergo dramatic synaptic changes. In human terms, that means sleep literally rewires your brain, solidifying memories and stabilizing others. Basically, sleep reflashes the structure of your brain, getting you ready to learn the next thing or come up with the next cool idea. So tinkering with sleep genes may not turn out to be a productivity-enhancer — in fact, drugs that play with sleep genes could be the next biological weapon.

Snoozing Worms Explain the Evolution of Sleep [Science Daily]

Hack Your Internal Sleep Clock Until You Become An Android

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 10:15:29 PST

Wired's latest magazine has a sideblurb-o-graphic about how to get by on only two hours of sleep a day, and here's a longer article about polyphasic sleep (as its called, who knew?) that breaks it down a bit further. Basically it is dangerous, could cause physical and social side effects, and will turn you into a fully functional automaton that runs on extremely short naps all day. Sign us up.