Sleeping Really important for our Brain

My research in the sleep field in clinical work over the years over 20years now has shown unequivocally that good sleep, adequate quality an adequate quantity is crucial to maintain good brain function throughout a life.  And even minimal chronic sleep loss.  even getting six hours a night when we need seven or getting six-and-a-half when we need seven-and-a-half can be shown to have impairments next day impairments it's why we tell you know high school students and the college students don't pull the all nighter you can actually do worse than if you studied somewhat and gotten a good night's sleep.  

So we know sleep really is the state in which would repair restore filter out the junk we've taken during the day lay down the important memories in the skills that we've learned during the day sleep is absolutely critical for these kinds of processes so unfortunately when chemotherapy is doing what it needs to for the cancer cells it also knocking down some other cells that help the brain have good sustain restorative sleep and so sleep can become fragmented can become reduced people wake up in the night and maybe have difficulty returning to sleep we know there are a lot of behavioral therapies that can help improve how we approach sleep.  A lot of what we do intuitively to improve sleep can actually make it worse and that's why the sleep specialist want to tell people listen you know it's really important to get up at the same time every day for instance you know when we've had a bad night the tendency is let me stay in bed a little bit longer, I finally get to sleep I'm not getting up now and unfortunately what happens then is that sleeping late shift the whole circadian clock so the next night is now even more difficult to fall asleep at your regular time, or if you fall asleep more easily awaken you during the night.  

So there are strategies we can use to help improve sleep along with understanding that the mechanisms under lying the chemotherapy, are also the same ones that can lead to disturbed sleep and what we're finding really supports a good sleep-wake schedule is actually getting up with the Sun in the morning, getting outside, getting exposed to that light because that light really turns to bring on it really stimulates a number of circadian rhythms there's so many rhythms within the body, to actually begin and what are the most important particular for sleep/wake cycles is the melatonin rhythm, so melatonin is turned off by when we rise in the morning and the greatest stimulant of that is light and so getting outside in the morning even if it's just for a few minutes, walk the dog, going out to get the newspaper having your coffee on the back porch in your robe in your night robe is a great way to start your day because then your body is getting information and healthy information that you don't even need to do anything about it is going to happen naturally taking a walk later in the day is a great way to be outside again to provide a plethora all novel stimulation nature is always different, and there are scents to be had there's temperature on the face to be felt, and the wind to be blowing in the trees to see, and the flowers and during each season there are different scenes that we can become involved in. 

And then finally, at night, it’s really important turn down the lights, so after dinner to really minimize screen time by screen time I mean in particular the iPhones blue lights to come from screens computer screens and even to some extent the TV screens, although they're a bit further away they're not as impactful as the ones that we hold right up to her face those blue lights that same frequency of light is what we see in morning sun and so what you're telling your brain is hey guess what it's still day time and so you bring doesn't know to turn on melatonin now it's delayed and so if you minimize screen time after dinner and let yourself wind down to the natural light of the day you're much more likely to be able fall asleep at the regular time at night, and have more deeper sleep as well.  And if you not able to get that sleep or the sleep remains disturbed despite your best efforts see your doctor talk to sleep specialist and find someone who can help you with this sit and suffer because sleep is a critical component of restoring the brain from chemo brain, chemo fog to functioning, healthy, normal adult activity. Again