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Sleep, Night Darkness, and Alzheimer’s

As the referenced article on the relationship between deep sleep (absence thereof) and Alzheimer’s notes, one of the more important functions of sleep is to allow the brain to clear out wastes. Toxic wastes in brain tissues are implicated in virtually every explanation for the cause of Alzheimer’s.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sleep-clears-brain

For many years the metabolic activity of the brain during sleep was a puzzle. While the rest of an animal’s body (including human’s) metabolically rests during sleep, not so with the brain. During sleep, the entire body consumes about the same amount of energy as when awake. But the body does rest. At night, the brain consumes, uses a greater proportion of the body’s total energy.

What is the brain doing with that energy during sleep? Well, it helps arrange and store memories. But importantly, it uses much of the energy to clear chemical wastes from the brain and associated nerves. Hence, the connection between deficient or poor sleep with the eventual onset of Alzheimer’s.

But, in modern life, one significant environmental factor has greatly exacerbated the poor sleep/brain dysfunction problem — light.

Before modern lighting changed living patterns, beginning in the early parts of the last century, when electricity powered electrical lamps, after sundown each day the only light available in buildings, residences, was from oil lamps or candles. Good enough to read (however strenuously) a book. The mind’s eye, as it were, had to work a bit to see anything lit by a candle or oil lamp. Then, when it was time to retire, the lamp or candle was snuffed out. Until sunup, the natural, deep darkness of the night; during which the sleeping brain, very actively could both consolidate memories and clear away accumulated toxins. A good night’s rest, for mind and body.

But my hero, Thomas Alva Edison, with his electrical lamps and electrical generation and distribution systems, changed human lives. Light was everywhere, 24/7. The human brain was genetically and physiologically unprepared. Sleep patterns were compromised; shorter, and prefixed by long, bright light periods In the evening. Unnatural, altogether. But far more convenient.

Two major problems ensued; still not widely recognized or managed.

The first is the color of modern lighting. Bright and cheerful. In the language of color photography, modern lights are “cold,” are predominated by hues at the cold or blue end of the spectrum; in contrast to the “warm,” reddish hues of a candle flame.

The fact is this: the brain takes light color signals from eyes as the day wanes. Naturally, as the sun sets, the bluish, “cold” hues subside, the reddish, “warm” hues predominate. This signals to the brain that sleep will soon follow. With the warm-color cues in the evening, the brain starts producing melatonin, a hormone that induces and promotes sound sleep.

But, today, we stay up late, lit all the evening with cold bluish lights. We go to bed, flip off the light, and try to sleep. But the brain has had no signal to prepare for sleep. No period of warm, subtle, reddish light to turn on melatonin production. That can take some time; while we stare at the bedroom ceiling trying to get to sleep.

But that’s when the second severe problem sets in. Light, again. Yes, after you’ve closed your eyes, light; when you are trying to sleep.

Fact is, eyes are extremely sensitive to the presence of any slight amount of light; even with your eyes tightly closed. When you go to bed tonight, after all the lights are out, open your eyes, see if you can see anything. You will see, however dimly, everything. Almost no one sleeps in an entirely dark bedroom. There is vagrant light from a multitude of sources; a hall light, light streaming In from a street light; even the lighted panel of a radio. With your eyes closed they can detect all of these, and will continuously, through the night, send “we’ve got light in here” signals to the brain. The brain fails to go into its normal, ancestral deep-sleep waste-clearing status.

Until I had to be in the Cleveland Clinic for kidney surgery (kidney stones), I thought all of this was crazy. But during my night of post-surgical recovery, I couldn’t sleep. The nurse left my room door wide open to the long hall outside. The lights in my room were out, but light streaming in from the hall kept me awake. I asked the nurse, “Can you close that door, so I can sleep?”

“Sorry, not allowed. Have to keep it open so we can hear patients who might call for help. But I’ll fix it for you in just a minute.”

She walked in with a black night mask, which she told me to place over my eyes. I put the thing on, carefully aligned it so no light could sneak around the edges; and slept like a log.

When I got home, I bought an even better, more closely-fitting night mask; have been using one now for 7 years. My mind remains as sharp as ever.

Then, about three years ago, I read that I should also adjust my Windows computer to turn off the cold, bluish portions of my monitor’s color spectrum after about 7pm. Did that; sleep even better now. My brain in the evening detects that things are getting warmer, more reddish; that sleep will ensue. Now, I fall asleep within minutes at night — and remain soundly asleep all night, with my night mask keeping out all of the extraneous synthetic light.

Give those things a try. Adjust your computer monitor to automatically go to warm hues early in the evening. Then, purchase and use a well-fitting night mask during sleep. You’ll be astounded.

And the brain’s clearing of wastes at night might tide you over until blarcamesine becomes available in a few years.