The Sleeping Position That’s Best for Brain Health?

The Best Sleeping Position for Optimal Brain Health

Pillows and people are always a lovely match, but there are plenty of other reasons why sleep is so important. Sleep restores, recharges, solves problems, processes emotions and memories leftover from the day, and quite literally, cleanses the brain. Bodies tend to unfold as they want to during sleep, but new research has found that it’s not just sleep that influences brain health, but also sleep position.

During sleep, the space between brain cells expands, allowing fluid to rapidly flow through the brain and wash away toxins that have built up in the central nervous system during waking hours.

[irp posts=”97″ name=”The Remarkable New Discovery About What Your Brain Does While You Sleep”]

 

The efficient removal of waste products from the brain will reduce the risk of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s. 

In a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers investigated how sleeping position affects the removal of toxins from the brain. 

The study found that sleeping on the side was the most efficient way to cleanse the brain of waste, reducing the risk of neurological disease. Evolution might have given us a hand here – sleeping on the side is already the most popular way to sleep for humans and most animals, even in the wild.

The study was conducted on mice – not because researchers wanted to find the best sleep position for tiny four-legged ones with fur, but because of their biological and genetic similarity to humans.

Many types of dementia have been linked to sleep disturbances and difficulties falling asleep. The effective removal of brain waste seems to have an important role in protecting against such disorders. When toxins aren’t eliminated, the risk of memory loss, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases is increased. Sleep, and more specifically sleeping on your side, facilitates the removal of these harmful brain toxins.

Now … if only the opportunities for peaceful, happy zzz’s were as plenty as the reasons.

 

7 Comments

Sylvia Britton

So many schools of thought – left side so acid reflux doesn’t happen and heart surgery patients are told to do this (I’m one of those), yet I find sleeping on my left side gives me a deeper, more restful sleep. Is either side helpful for flushing CSF, or is one better than the other. The above article says “…the side…”. Has there been other research on which side?

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Olli-Petteri Nivaro

It says ‘lateral position’ (as opposed to prone/supine) so I’m confident that they made the same observation for both left- and right-side sleepers; if there was any significant difference, it would be reasonable to assume that they’d have reported it.

And as far as I can tell, this paper is the first one to address the effect of sleeping position on glymphatic transport (it doesn’t sound like an experiment that you’d readily come up with and get funds for, either), and since it was published in August 2015, I wouldn’t expect any additional info on this subject — at least from research using human subjects — before 2016.

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Betty

What would be the safest thing to take to help you sleep through the night? I enjoy a glass of wine each evening before bed but dont think it has anything to do with waking up repeatedly. Thank you

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Pia Gundersen

That was an interesting article. How, specifically, does the brain do this? What happens in the brain during sleep and where does the waste go?
Thank you.
Pia

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Hey Sigmund

During sleep, the cells in the brain shrink, allowing an opening up the space between the cells. This allows cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) – which usually covers the surface of the brain during the day – to flow through the brain and take toxins with it. The CSF flows through a kind of plumbing system called the glymphatic system, which appears to be able to work 10 times harder when we’re asleep. There enormous amount of energy required to pump CSF. The brain has enough to do while during waking hours, so this pumping takes place while we’re asleep. In lab experiments with mice, it has been found that waste from the cells is flushed out via the blood vessels in the brain, into the circulatory stytem f the body and eventually into the liver. Hope that makes it clearer.

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We have to change the way we talk about anxiety. If we talk about it as a disorder, this is how it feels.

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Anxiety isn’t the absence of brave, it’s the calling of brave. It’s there because you’re about to do something hard, brave, meaningful - not because there’s something wrong with you.

First, acknowledge the anxiety. Without this validation, anxiety will continue to do its job and prepare the body for fight or flight, and drive big feelings to recruit the safety of another human.

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You are one of the bravest, strongest people I know. Being brave feels scary and hard sometimes doesn’t it. It feels like brave isn’t there, but it’s always there. Always. And you know what else I know? It gets easier every time. I’ve know this because I’ve seen you do hard things, and because I’ve felt like this too, so many times. I know that you and me, even when we feel anxious, we can do brave. It’s always in you. I know that for certain.’♥️
Our job as parents isn’t to remove their distress around boundaries, but to give them the experiences to recognise they can handle boundaries - holding theirs and respecting the boundaries others. 

Every time we hold a boundary, we are giving our kids the precious opportunity to learn how to hold their own.

If we don’t have boundaries, the risk is that our children won’t either. We can talk all we want about the importance of boundaries, but if we don’t show them, how can they learn? Inadvertently, by avoiding boundary collisions with them, we are teaching them to avoid conflict at all costs. 

In practice, this might look like learning to put themselves, their needs, and their feelings away for the sake of peace. Alternatively, they might feel the need to control other people and situations even more. If they haven’t had the experience of surviving a collision of needs or wants, and feeling loved and accepted through that, conflicting needs will feel scary and intolerable.

Similarly, if we hold our boundaries too harshly and meet their boundary collisions with shame, yelling, punishment or harsh consequences, this is how we’re teaching them to respond to disagreement, or diverse needs and wants. We’re teaching them to yell, fight dirty, punish, or overbear those who disagree. 

They might also go the other way. If boundaries are associated with feeling shamed, lonely, ‘bad’, they might instead surrender boundaries and again put themselves away to preserve the relationship and the comfort of others. This is because any boundary they hold might feel too much, too cruel, or too rejecting, so ‘no boundary’ will be the safest option. 

If we want our children to hold their boundaries respectfully and kindly, and with strength, we will have to go first.

It’s easy to think there are only two options. Either:
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- We focus on the connection at the expense of the boundary. 

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Eventually we want to grow them into people who can feel all their feelings and lasso them into words that won’t break people, but this will take time.

In the meantime, they’ll need us to model the words and hold the boundaries firmly and lovingly. This might sound like:

‘It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay not to like my decision. It’s not okay to speak to me like that. I know you know that. My answer is still no.’

Then, when they’re back to calm, have the conversation: 

‘I wonder if sometimes when you say you don’t like me, what you really mean is that you don’t like what I’ve done. It’s okay to be angry at me. It’s okay to tell me you’re angry at me. It’s not okay to be disrespectful.

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Boundaries must come with two things - love and leadership. They shouldn’t feel hollow, and they don’t need to feel like brick walls. They can be held firmly and lovingly.

Boundaries without the ‘loving’ will feel shaming, lonely, harsh. Understandably children will want to shield from this. This ‘shielding’ looks like keeping their messes from us. We drive them into the secretive and the forbidden because we squander precious opportunities to guide them.

Harsh consequences don’t teach them to avoid bad decisions. They teach them to avoid us.

They need both: boundaries, held lovingly.

First, decide on the boundary. Boundaries aren’t about what we want them to do. We can’t control that. Boundaries are about what we’ll do when the rules are broken.

If the rule is, ‘Be respectful’ - they’re in charge of what they do, you’re in charge of the boundary.

Attend to boundaries AND relationship. ‘It’s okay to be angry at me. (Rel’ship) No, I won’t let you speak to me like that. (Boundary). I want to hear what you have to say. (R). I won’t listen while you’re speaking like that. (B). I’m  going to wait until you can speak in a way I can hear. I’m right here. (R).

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