I have been rather focused on sleep this year since my own was so poor and I was so tired all the time.  So while reading my AARP magazine today, I came across another article about Brain Health and Sleep. Written by P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D. who is a member of the AARP Medical Advisory Board, Dr. Doraiswamy explained the various functions that take place while you sleep. Seems you may sleep, but your brain doesn’t. In fact several parts are more active a night than curing the daytime. One is a newly discovered drainage system called the glymphatic system. Like your city’s sewage and recycling system, its job is to clear out and recycle all your brain’s toxins. Dr. Doraiswamy reported studies that indicate chronic sleep deprivation leading to irreversible brain damage. Short amounts of sleep may also be linked to shrinking brain volume. Chemicals secreted during the deeper stages of sleep are crucial for repairing the body and the brain.

Another brain function allows all the information that we absorb during the day to be process and tagged. Memories are archived at night. He compared the brain to a library: all the books dropped off in the book repository during the day are dusted off and cataloged at night.

A lot of work to be done in a very short time, especially if you are just lying in bed trying to sleep and not doing so. I think we all need to focus on our sleep issues in 2015 and try to regain the beneficial and rejuvenating sleep we used to get in our youth.

As for me, my problem is much better. I am reading and following the cognitive sleep steps outlined in Say Good Night to Insomnia: The Six-Week, Drug-Free Program by Gregg D. Jacobs. The majority of nights, I fall asleep within 10 minutes of turning off the lights. And if I wake up in the middle of the night, I am able to resume my sleeping within 5 minutes. I am waking up refreshed the majority of time. I am still having individual days of problems but the non-problem nights are in the vast majority now. I hope you all will get this book and follow the steps. It works.

Happy Happy Holidays to all of you.