TED Talk on Getting a Good Night's Sleep

For the life of me I cannot work out why people would rather about think about things that can't be altered at 2am rather then sleep.

Regardless of what's gone on with my day, and some are very hectic with a disabled wife, a near 6 year old and small business, I can always sleep through the night.

There are times that I might not have "turned off" like I usually do and take longer then usual to get to sleep but once I;m out then it's lights out - literally!

I've posted about sleep before and here's another sleep related blog based off a TED talk by a neuroscientist

Jeff Lliff.

Here are my takeaways:

• The brain's intense electrical activity uses up a quarter of the body's entire energy supply 
• The first problem we need to solve is nutrient and oxygen delivery which the circulatory system does through blood vessels to every corner of our body
• Just as every cell requires nutrients to fuel it, every cell produces waste and that is the second problem that needs solving
• The lymphatic system has evolved to fill this need where it takes up proteins and other waste, collects them and dumps them into the blood so they can be disposed of
• The weird part is that the brain doesn't contain any lymphatic vessels at all so the approach the body takes to waste disposal won't work in the brain
• The brain has a large pool of clean, clear fluid called carebrospianl fluid (CSF) that fills the space that surrounds the brain and waste from the brain make their way out to the CSF which gets dumped into your blood, similar to lymphatic drainage
• There is a specialised network of plumbing that organises an facilitates this process
• What they found was that the CSF outside of the brain didn't stay there but was actually pumped back into the brain along the OUTSIDE of the blood vessels and flushed into the brain helping to clear away and clean the waste from spaces between the brain's cells.
• The brain is already jam packed and has no room for a second set of cells like the lymphatic system but the blood vessels extend from the surface of the brain right down to every single cell in the brain and the fluid travelling along the blood vessels can gain easy access to the entire volume of the brain, essentially repurposing the same set of vessels to perform a lymphatic response
• This entire system is unique to the brain
• The BBIIIGGG thing here is that this only occurs when the brain is sleeping where the brain cells seem to shrink which opens up space between them allowing CSF to rush through and clear allowing waste to be cleared out
• When the brain is awake it puts off clearing away waste and waits for a time sleep as it's busy enough when you're awake
• Getting specific about waste, there is a waste type called amyloid-beta which is a protein that's made in the brain all the time (you're making it right now) which in Alzeimer's sufferers builds up and fills the space between the brain cells and limits the clearage taking place later

Another notch in sleep belt!

You can watch the full 11min TED talk, which has some videos to help explain it better, here.