Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things
Today has been a gray, sleepy day, which reminds me ….
I came across 2 articles online recently related to sleep, thus this special Sleep Edition of Olio.
First up, from Medium, “The Sleep Routines of Successful People.” This article provides a brief list of the number of hours certain successful – read: famous successful – people get per night. You’ll recognize most, if not all, of them when you read the article. Of those on the list, Ellen DeGeneres gets the most sleep at 8 hours per night. Donald Trump gets the least at 3 hours per night.
If you are amazed that anyone can survive on a mere 3 hours of sleep a night, let alone function effectively, the next sleep story I found will provide more perspective.
From NPR: “Lack Of Deep Sleep May Set The Stage For Alzheimer’s.” Recent research on sleep has shown that one of its critical functions is to give the body a chance to clear toxins out of the brain. Now scientists are looking at how the quality of sleep affects this cleansing process. The theory is that the deeper the sleep, the more effective the cleansing, including potentially clearing out the plaques that may cause Alzheimer’s.
Extrapolating from this theory, it stands to reason that the more sleep a person is able to get, the better the chance there will be time for this cleaning process, which would mean that Ellen is more likely to avoid Alzheimer’s than The Donald. Something to think about.
With all the sleep I get (8-9 hours is my preferred amount), I ought to be sufficiently flushing the amyloid plaques right out of my brain (crossing fingers!).
Unless scientists discover that those who need very little sleep are more efficient at the cleaning process than those who need more sleep. Theory potentially blown.
Maybe we just need to concentrate on getting the amount of sleep that makes us feel rested until scientists have nailed this down better.
In the meantime, if you’re having trouble falling asleep, have a listen to “Caribbean Blue” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1L8uRApYeQ] or pretty much anything by Enya.