Slashdot Mirror
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.
I'm not very prone to colds, but it's my experience that when I'm sleep-deprived, I feel much more sensitive to cold weather. It's interesting to see it wasn't just an impression of mine, and if I stop being lazy I may read the full article, to see if they have found what mechanisms are at play.
There's nothing like $HOME
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
Up Next! Too much food can make you fat! Stay tuned.
Fighting the frizzies at 11.
Some of the most profound discoveries have come from experiments verifying established knowledge, yielding unexpected results. Rutherford's discovery of the atomic nucleus resulted from just such an experiment.
So what if they did? You're an idiot if you think we shouldn't be studying things that "everyone knows".
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.
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
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.