Sleep Health and its Parallel to Weight Management.
Sleep Health needs to be approached like weight management. Ones body mass develops overtime. It is a process that occurs overtime and has multiple factors. Calories consumed, composition of nutrients, expenditure of energy, our ability to digest and metabolize foods, as well as genetics all play a role in composition of one’s body mass. Environmental factors also influence each of these variables. And our attitudes about nutrition and exercise are also influenced from early childhood. Sleep health is a parallel. Sleep habits form overtime. There is no magic sleep pill just as there is no diet pill. Our attitudes about sleep are influenced on what our upbringing has demanded, but also influenced by our observations of the generation before us.
There is spectrum on the bell curve in weight and body mass. There are people that are inherently thin or large, and it is part of who they are and their genetic make up. Likewise with the amount of sleep that is needed per individual.
Treat Insomnia as You Would Obesity.
Treating insomnia should be viewed in the same light as treating obesity. It’s a life style that needs to be altered, and there is no magic pill. Medications are not the answer for weight loss, diet and exercise are. Medications are likewise not the answer for insomnia, proper behavioral sleep health is.
There are individuals that despite the diet and exercise remain obese and there are also medications that can assist in weight loss. Same concept goes for sleep.
Obesity does not occur overnight. It is an accumulation of lack of exercise and high calorie dense foods. Insomnia does not occur overnight either. There is an accumulation of poor habits, staying up late, TV and computer after hours and in bedrooms.
Our society is filled with calorie dense food options, supersize me, which predisposes to obesity. It is also filled with caffeinated drinks and a 24 hour entertainment mentality that predisposes to insomnia.
There indeed can be a traumatic or sudden experience that can directly be traced to weight gain, a back injury or the birth of a child. These are lifestyle altering events that change our daily metabolism and calorie expenditure. They equally affect our sleep-wake chemistry and circadian rhythms.
One can have a tendency to binge eat as they can binge sleep. One can also calorie starve themselves as they can sleep deprive themselves. Both lead to rebound sensations of our satiety center, they alter our hunger drive. This likewise leads to changes in our energy and alertness patterns.
Crash diets may lead to a temporary weight loss, however when there is reintroduction of the same unhealthy eating habits there is rebound weight gain. Likewise one may sleep in later for a period of time or go to bed earlier for a temporary period of time, but when you reintroduce the poor sleep habits the rebound sleep patterns return.
Many of our eating and exercise patterns are introduced to us early in life. In youth we are guided to eat 3 meals a day, but the composition of the calories and foods are equally important. Likewise early in youth we do have particular bedtimes, but our bedtime rituals and habits affect sleep in long run. Despite what we have our children eat, they observe what the parents eat as well as their attitudes towards certain foods. Kids also pick up on parental sleep habits.
Societal Influences.
Society has a view on beauty and body figure. It is more idealistic then it is realistic. Emphasis is placed on being thin or muscular. Barbie dolls and superheroes. The term fat is derogatory as skinny is complimentary. Likewise it is frowned upon to fall asleep in a meeting, they think something is wrong with the person. Also people laugh about how they were up till late yet worked all day. Unrealistic expectations of body figure in a McDonalds society lead dysfunctional thoughts of self worth, fad diets, and fad exercise machines. The act of sleeping is the most inexpensive function we perform, but there is a billion dollar industry on mattresses and sleep aids to attempt to compensate for time accumulated poor sleep habits.
Society has romanticism with sleep deprivation. Rock stars party all night, doctors on TV save people’s life after working for 48 hours, and the coolest places to be are cities that never sleep. People who do not stay up all night are not viewed in the same glamour, and people who do not function well when they are sleepy are given a hard time for such. Chris Farley is comic relief just as the Narcoleptic in Deuce Bigalow. Sleeping Beauty needed to be saved by a prince.
Our educations system requires we know about atoms and electrons, but calorie composition is not included in IQ testing. A kid can tell you the planets in our solar system before they can tell you about the food groups. The only thing that is taught about sleep is that you need it and that bears hibernate. And all cartoons of bears hibernating are either fat or snoring. Have you ever seen a cartoon of a muscle bound bear hibernating?
Where Do We Go From Here?
Knowledge is power. We educate the educators, just as we do the public. We discuss the discoveries of sleep science on social media, as well as the traditional press media. We also teach the children from early on with reading books. We create a buzz that makes consumers demand more information. Create a demand that more doctors and other clinicians know the importance of sleep science.
