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Lack of Sleep Puts You At Higher Risk For Colds, First Experimental Study Finds
sciencehabit writes: Moms and sleep researchers alike have stressed the importance of solid shuteye for years, especially when it comes to fighting off the common cold. Their stance is a sensible one—skimping on sleep weakens the body's natural defense system, leaving it more vulnerable to viruses. But the connection relied largely on self-reported, subjective surveys—until now (abstract). For the first time, a team of scientists reports that they have locked down the link experimentally, showing that sleep-deprived individuals are more than four times more likely to catch a cold than those who are well-rested.
Count me in as a data point. Every time I undersleep I get the sniffles. if I undersleep and am exposed to cold weather, it's game over. Every time I oversleep after getting those sniffles I get better, if not outright lose them. I also notice that other healing processes in my body work a lot better after getting good sleep. Headaches, ear aches, all sorts of minor maladies that I've had over the years (I'm 28).
This is also one more reason to hate public schools. The early morning starts are doing the children a huge disservice by stunting their brain and body development, plus the classrooms are penning up underslept students with weakened immune systems and easily transmittable diseases. This is what you do to lab animals, not people. I've had colds on a regular basis while going to school, and I knew why. Thankfully everyone else now knows too.
Like the earth being flat seems pretty obvious?
Get some exercise. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet.
Knowing it in principle and knowing when to put that knowledge to work are two different things.
I used to catch *everything* that was going around, including some things most other people didn't. I got sick three, maybe four times a year. I always put it down to having a lousy immune system, until in one checkup I mentioned to my doctor that I'm a pretty loud snorer. "Better have you checked for sleep apnea," he said, and sure enough I had it, although only a relatively mild case. He prescribed sleeping on a CPAP machine, and since I've been doing that I almost never get sick. Maybe once in four years.
Anecdotal evidence, I know, but my point is this. Now that there's research demonstrating the impact of sleep on immune system performance it makes sense to make questions about sleep quantity and quality a routine part of health surveillance. I just happened to mention snoring to my doctor on one visit; if I'd been asked twenty years earlier it would have saved my employers a lot of sick time and me a lot of misery.
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Jesus, we wouldn't get anywhere if the world were full of people like you.
Um...
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Interested people might want to go read up on melatonin: how it is produced most effectively, and what its effects are on health. Obviously, it is an area that still requires a lot of study to be conclusive, but I suspect that this hormone plays a large part in the effect demonstrated in this study.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
The point is that the relationship between sleep and the strength of the immune system has been well know and tested for years so it's obvious that if you have a stronger immune system that you would be more resilient to getting a cold.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
yup.
The point is that the relationship between sleep and the strength of the immune system has been well know and tested for years...
For a certain value of "well-known" and "tested". You could actually read the paper abstract and see what was novel about this particular study.
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Up Next! Too much food can make you fat! Stay tuned.
Fighting the frizzies at 11.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
This is not a proof. Does the 90 year old chain smoker disprove that cigarettes cause cancer?
And yet the average American gets too little sleep routinely.
Here is an article from 2010.
Turns out going outside when it's cold and wet pretty much never makes a difference in the normal course of things. Hypothermia is the exception, and for the most part that means going outside cold, wet, and without much clothing for prolonged periods of time to the extent you're likely chattering the daylights out of your teeth.
This is an important finding since current parenting styles (at least in temperate areas of the US) often include keeping the kids inside much of the winter to prevent them from getting sick. The consequent lack of exercise and being in close quarters with disease vectors (other kids) yields the result of sick, fat kids. I tell my patients to send little Cindy and Juan outside with a good coat when it's cold and wet, unless the little buggers are going to slip on the ice or are shedding genuine tears of misery in a prolonged fashion, which I personally think is good advice for grown up nerds as well, present company included.
But our mothers, wives, girlfriends, employers, etc etc etc just won't listen! We need our beauty sleep. Up at the crack of noon.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
As if women needed another excuse to refuse sex.
Oh, wait...
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
For many people, especially smokers who know such an individual personally, the answer is yes, it does disprove that cigarettes cause cancer. After all, if it doesn't happen with 100% replicability then it isn't real. Right?
The same is true for most everything else. If someone doesn't habitually consume toxins (tobacco, alcohol, whatever), eats well (lots of leafy greens and fruit in addition to meat and some grains), and exercises moderately and regularly -- but still gets sick and doesn't live to be 120 -- then you have proof that a healthy life style doesn't make you live longer. And lets not even consider the odd cases where someone like that dies young from inexplicable causes.
In short, if something does against what a person *wants* to be true, it had better be 100% or it stands a snowball's chance of convincing them.
anyone not know this already?.. it seems pretty obvious
Yeah, aren't you just sick and tired of articles about being tired and sick? To be fair, though, this was news to me: maybe I've read things like this before, but if so the concept probably just didn't sink in, what with all the fatigue-driven-illness I've been experiencing lately...
I love generalizations like this study. I'm a very short term sleeper. 2-4hrs/night average. Been like this my entire life (over 30yrs now). Last time I had a cold that put me in bed I was in high school. I cannot recall the last time I had one that kept me from a day of work. Last time I had the flu... I think I was 17. It's been so long it's difficult to recall now.
No doubt everything is on a bit of a curve. To say "everyone" is far to generalized.
The earth being flat does not measure up to even very basic observation, as long as you are stickler for detail and consistency.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
anyone not know this already?.. it seems pretty obvious
Pretty obvious the world is flat too, but it's helpful to use the scientific method to confirm whether or not it actually is.
anyone not know this already?.. it seems pretty obvious
Pretty obvious the world is flat too, but it's helpful to use the scientific method to confirm whether or not it actually is.
Actually, it's pretty obvious that the world is round if you have some basic math. Or stand up on a westward-facing beach and watch the sun set a second time. We've known the world was round since way before Columbus, it's just that we could do the math and knew it was WAY too far around the ocean to India to make it, so nobody else was stupid enough to try. Columbus was REALLY lucky there was a landmass in the middle.
However, in my experience the connection between colds and sleep is even more obvious. The more sleep you have, the weaker the cold becomes, and vice-versa. Vary your sleep a little and you'll see it's as directly observable as "When I drop a rock on my foot, OUCH!"
No.
Yellow eye burns!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So what if they did? You're an idiot if you think we shouldn't be studying things that "everyone knows".
I blame cocaine and the Cartoon Network.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Get some exercise. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet.
That's some facepalmy advice for a person with cold, especially if they have fever.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Lack of sleep puts you at risk for just about everything in the way of illness.
Go to bed, people. Don't look at any screens for at least a half-hour before you hit the pillow and it will help you fall asleep.
Sleep is wonderful. Get 8-9 hours if you can. The longer you sleep the more you'll dream and dreams (even nightmares) are crucial for good mental and physical health. In fact, some of the best days I've ever had seemed to come after a night with one of those nightmares where you wake up shouting, jumping off the bed and grasping the covers.
Artificial lighting has screwed us up a bit. If I could, I'd go to bed a few hours after dark and wake up at dawn every day. I do it during the summer, but where I live it gets dark pretty early in the winter.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I though it said "sheep".
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Everybody who goes to conventions, especially conventions for hobbies, SF, fantasy, mystery, gaming or media interests knows what con crud is. It's a type of cold or flu-like disorder that many people come down with either at those conventions or just after. Not everybody gets it, of course, and few people get it every time, but as long as there are a few people there who are in the contagious stage, it's going to be passed around. I've been lucky, so far, because in several decades of attending SF and media cons I've never come down with it. I also try to make sure that I get adequate sleep while I'm enjoying the con and that just might be why I've been immune to it. Remember, if you want to come home healthy, don't insist on partying all night, every night and be sure to eat at least one healthy meal every day.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Asthma is another exception, which is not mentioned in that article.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
more for the pre existing conditions list and you boss can hold it over you with the GOP wins
Well bob you can keep working the OT or we can get rid you and you will have a very hard time being able to pay for a doctor ever again.
This would be news to Cohen, S., Doyle, W. J., Alper, C. M., Janicki-Deverts, D., & Turner, R. B. (2009). Sleep habits and susceptibility to the common cold. Archives of Internal Medicine, 169(1), 62–67. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2008.505 "Background: Sleep quality is thought to be an impor- tant predictor of immunity and, in turn, susceptibility to the common cold. This article examines whether sleep duration and efficiency in the weeks preceding viral ex- posure are associated with cold susceptibility. Methods: A total of 153 healthy men and women (age range, 21-55 years) volunteered to participate in the study. For 14 consecutive days, they reported their sleep dura- tion and sleep efficiency (percentage of time in bed ac- tually asleep) for the previous night and whether they felt rested. Average scores for each sleep variable were calculated over the 14-day baseline. Subsequently, par- ticipants were quarantined, administered nasal drops con- taining a rhinovirus, and monitored for the develop- ment of a clinical cold (infection in the presence of objective signs of illness) on the day before and for 5 days after exposure. Results: There was a graded association with average sleep duration: participants with less than 7 hours of sleep were 2.94 times (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.18-7.30) more likely to develop a cold than those with 8 hours or more of sleep. The association with sleep efficiency was also graded: participants with less than 92% efficiency were 5.50 times (95% CI, 2.08-14.48) more likely to develop a cold than those with 98% or more efficiency. These relation- ships could not be explained by differences in prechal- lenge virus-specific antibody titers, demographics, sea- son of the year, body mass, socioeconomic status, psychological variables, or health practices. The percent- age of days feeling rested was not associated with colds. Conclusion: Poorer sleep efficiency and shorter sleep du- ration in the weeks preceding exposure to a rhinovirus were associated with lower resistance to illness."
A better example would be believing the earth is the centre of the universe and the sun goes round it. Copernicus had a real struggle to convince people that what was "obvious" wasn't actually true.
We'd be pretty far along on the carpentry stuff though. Cause you know, he kinda nailed it.
Not cold and wet, but when it's cold and dry, yes. Studies have proven that the virus hand around longer in dry climate, and that the reason you have a runny nose is the body's attempt and snuffing it out with moisture.
Life is not for the lazy.
Anecdotal evidence
Anecdotal evidence is evidence just like any other evidence.
No idea why americans believe otherwise.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You can use different kinds of evidence different ways. Credible anecdotal evidence can disprove some things, or it can suggest other things, but for the most part can't prove that one thing causes another.
Example: Suppose my friend Larry gets lung cancer a few years after he quit smoking. This disproves the notion that if you quit smoking you are guaranteed not to get lung cancer. It suggests that smoking causes long-term damage to the cells of the lung. It doesn't prove that quitting smoking causes cancer.
Randomized controlled studies are generally the most useful evidence points when it comes to trying to prove causation, but individual studies still can't do that. What you need is a pattern of evidence that includes RCTs and other, independent lines of inquiry.
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I got sick three, maybe four times a year.
That sounds pretty standard to me if you're just talking about colds.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I thought the old wives' tale about getting wet/cold and catching a cold had been debunked years ago?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yes... but only because they weren't observant. In the third century, a famous mathematician from Greece deduced that the Earth was round by relatively casual observation, and using the crude measuring devices available at the time estimated the size of the earth to well within 15% of its actual size, which really isn't half bad for the era.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Why is this on Slashdot? A computer website...
Slashdot's motto is"News for Nerds" and this does not refer purely to computer nerds. There were nerds before computers were even invented.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I didn't take care of my teeth as well as I should have when I was younger. Coincidentally, I always had minor nasal issues, especially when I first woke up. I assumed that frequently stuffy and occasional bloody noses in the morning were just parts of life. After I grew older and started aggressively taking care of my teeth, all those problems disappeared at the same time, and those nasal issues turning into colds vanished. Further, they all show up again if, for some reason, I don't take of my teeth for a night or two.
It never dawned on me that there is a moist, 100-degree Fahrenheit tube of only a few inches that any germs could travel within the 8 hours of being horizontal that could lead to such nasal infections.
I wonder whether someone who is not disciplined to get enough sleep also does not take care of his mouth.
Does lack of sleep affect that too? I noticed my body is more sensitive from them. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
But it's good advice for a healthy person.
If you sat in your office chair all day, then went home and binge watched Game of Thrones and tried to go to sleep you may not get good rest. But if you put of that last episode to go for a 30 minute jog, took a shower, then went to bed your body is much happier to get a good night's rest.
We're not meant to be sedentary creatures. That's what he was trying to say.
A sick person is supposed to get plenty of rest, however.
I refuse to sign
YMMV, but I went from 3-4 bad colds a year, to maybe one mild one every other year, when I started supplementing with vitamins C (1000mg/day), D (4800IU/day), magnesium, and zinc. I've been horribly insomniac all my life, but I still never get colds, even though I'm around children all the time, a lot of them get sick, blow their nose or puke on me, etc., and I almost *never* get their colds or GI bugs. Our own kids also stopped getting them when we started supplementing, and they're around sick kids even more than I am. I really do believe that vitamins C and D are things our immune systems need but don't usually get enough of, and that if we do get them, then getting a mild viral infection should be an exceptional circumstance, not a normal one. I'm also not discounting the value of sleep. My extreme lack thereof causes or contributes to many other health problems (depression, anxiety, lack of concentration or short-term memory, obesity, hypertension, insulin and leptin resistance, etc.). However, in spite of all this, and what I would consider generally poor health overall, I almost never get colds anymore. The supplements are cheap, and, in the quantities I take them, very unlikely to cause any other health problems. I strongly recommend them.
Nonaggression works!
That is not an anecdotical evidence, it is no evidence at all.
If the official weather history says, Karlsruhe, the town I live hat its hottest day 9th and 13th of august in 2002 with a temperature of 40.2 degrees celsius.
However I measured on my balcony at a different date 48 degrees celsius. That is my evidence, it is anecdotical as it is only a "story" told by me. So typical american reaction: that anecdotical evidence is no evidence. However: I have a photo :D but without a date ... so?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.