Tag

Sleep

08/06/2022
Tayla Schuit
In All Articles, Dr Yu Sun Bin, Sleep

Expert Q&A Introducing: Dr Yu Sun Bin

1. Could you tell us a little about your career and areas of expertise/interest? 

I work as a research fellow and senior lecturer in sleep and circadian health. My research is focused on how sleep and circadian rhythms affect the health of the community as a whole, and my teaching is focused on raising awareness of how important sleep and circadian rhythms are for health and wellbeing. I am particularly interested in how to promote sleep as a healthy habit; the impact of sleep disorders in pregnancy and in women more generally; and also applying circadian science to reducing jetlag.  

 

2. What drew you to this line of work/research in the first place?

I went to uni thinking I would be a physicist! But I found psychology, particularly the ways of thinking and behaving that we all have in common as humans, more interesting. Since I wanted to focus on the things that people have in common, I was not interested in practicing (clinical) psychology, I was interested in how we can improve health for everyone. This is why I went into further study in public health, because it is all about how the environment we live in affects our health. By environment, I mean all aspects of the environment from our culture, values, and institutions, as well as the built and natural environments. 

Sleep is a great example of something we all do and have in common, which is heavily influenced byhow much we value sleep, when we sleep, and who we sleep with. As a society, we are just beginning to realise how cultural changes in technology and work hours negatively affect our sleep, but we haven’t yet found systemic solutions to preserve sleep and our health.

 

3. How do you look after your own physical and mental wellbeing?

I get enough sleep and try to be realistic about what can be accomplished in one day. I know that if I over-work, I will only need to spend the next day recovering, rather than having gained extra time! I have learned to be more consistent in my work patterns and to try and approach life as one long marathon where I’m NOT in a hurry to get to the end.

 

4. Do you have a favourite post-workout cafe?

I think that question assumes I work out! I’m not a fan of gym-based exercise, but a big fan of walking everywhere and long walks with my dogs. I find that a coffee beforehand helps with my motivation to start and my ability to keep going; but no caffeine is needed afterwards. 

 

5. What is one thing you wish people knew about wellbeing? 

There are no secrets and we’ve known what works for a very long time! For sleep for instance, it’s well documented in the Bible – a text that is thousands of years old – that people knew that sleep deprivation was harmful and understood that insomnia was caused by stress and anxiety. They also understood that alcohol can negatively affect sleep while exercise could improve sleep. 

We also have more recent evidence from the late 1890s, more than a century ago now, where people lamented in medical journals that there was more insomnia due to “the busy-ness of modern life” but that same comment is often made today. Neither the problems nor the answers have changed; we just need to be better at implementing those boring old answers and stop looking for panaceas. 

 

6. What is one of the most ridiculous things you’ve read or seen about wellbeing that you know to be untrue? 

I try not to repeat things that I know to be untrue. Unfortunately with the way that modern media and social media is designed, commenting on untruths only tends to spread them further!

 

7. Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or websites on health or wellbeing that you’d recommend?

I think reading books and listening to podcasts you actually enjoy is best for wellbeing! I personally enjoy listening to these podcasts:

  • No Such Thing as a Fish, in which the QI researchers discuss random facts in a light-hearted fashion
  • The Junkees , in which comedians Kitty Flanagan and Dave Hughes talk about and taste-test junk food (everything in moderation!)
  • Swindled, in which an anonymous American narrator with a very dry sense of humour talks about white-collar crimes and institutional and regulatory failures

 

8. What is your top tip for living a healthy and happy life? 

Spend time outdoors! Apart from getting natural light that is essential for quality sleep, there’s also a whole wealth of research that shows that seeing and being surrounded by greenery, sky, and water provides people with a sense of restoration. We don’t know why exactly, but surely 50 million years of primates living and evolving in natural environments has something to do with it!

25/05/2022
Tayla Schuit
In All Articles, Dr Yu Sun Bin, Sleep

Research Review: Can We Sleep To Much?

In this article, our expert Dr. Yu Sun Bin reviews: Can People Sleep Too Much? Effects of Extended Sleep Opportunity on Sleep Duration and Timing by Klerman EB, Barbato G, Czeisler CA, Wehr TA. 

 

1) What was the high-level summary of the research? 

People cannot sleep ‘too much’. The amount of sleep we get is regulated by the homeostatic and circadian systems which drive us towards a stable amount of sleep, provided we allow enough time for it. 

While we cannot sleep too much, we can spend excess time in bed. When given 12-14 hours of opportunity to sleep, healthy people can develop patterns similar to those with insomnia and take longer to fall asleep, wake more often in the middle of the night, and wake too early and be unable to go back to sleep. 

 

2) What did the study try to measure? 

The study measured objective sleep using sleep studies. The study assessed whether, when given long periods of time in which to sleep, people could sleep to excess, or if they would reach a stable point with a roughly consistent amount of sleep every night. 

 

3) How was the study undertaken? 

The authors of this study analysed data from two of their previous studies. 

In Study 1, healthy volunteers were given the opportunity to spend 14-hours in bed per night for 28 days; In Study 2, volunteers were given the opportunity to spend 12-hours in bed for 8 nights, with the addition of a 4-hour window for napping during the day. 

Neither study interfered with the sleep of the volunteers, apart from giving instructions that they should try to sleep during those windows of time. Both studies involved volunteers sleeping in research labs so that factors such as work and socialising did not influence how much volunteers slept and when they went to sleep and woke up. 

 

4) What did the study find? 

In both studies, volunteers slept more during their first week in the lab – on average, sleeping 2 hours longer than they did at home. However, the differences between volunteers were marked: some did not sleep more at all when given the opportunity, whilst others slept almost 6 hours longer! 

After the first week of extended opportunity for sleep, the total sleep time of the volunteers stabilised: on average, people in Study 1 slept 8.6 hours nightly, whilst those in Study 2 slept 8.9 hours on average. However, individual needs for sleep were very different: at one extreme, one volunteer stabilised at 5.2 hours of nightly sleep, whilst at the other extreme, another stabilised at 11.0 hours. These results show that during the first week in the lab, having protected sleep time was important for many of the volunteers to catch up on sleep. However, once they had caught up, their sleep stabilised and they tended to have roughly the same amount of sleep every night. This amount of sleep was unique to them.

Also important to note is that sleep quality decreased for many of the volunteers in these studies – that is, even though the same amount of sleep was achieved, it took them longer to fall asleep, they woke up more often or too early on some nights. However, unlike people with chronic insomnia, these healthy volunteers then made up for this slight sleep loss the next night. This is exactly how sleep is supposed to work as dictated by the sleep homeostatic process which maintains an equilibrium in our sleep/wake cycles. 

 

5) Is there any other research out there that supports these findings or contradicts it? 

There is plenty to support it! For example, in large scale epidemiological studies that link long sleep durations (>9 hours) to poor health, the association is no longer seen when existing health conditions are taken into account. This suggests that it is time in bed and poor sleep quality that contributes to poor health, or that poor health contributes to excess time in bed and poor sleep quality.

Similarly, in terms of performance, it is not possible to sleep more to ‘bank’ sleep, but it is possible to reduce existing sleep debt so that you are better protected from any effects of future sleep deprivation. 

 

6) How much weight should we give this research?

This research is highly credible given the supporting evidence. The only thing to keep in mind is that the studies were limited to young people, aged 18 to 36 years, without any health conditions so the expectation of ~8 hours of sleep being average may not be applicable to other age groups and people with existing health conditions.

 

7) What does this mean for your work/research/industry? 

There is often a disconnect and conflict in the sleep field about what advice we give to people with clinically significant insomnia and to the general public at large. The message we try to give to the general public is that typically, people should sleep more to get enough sleep. However, the clinicians who work with insomnia sufferers are unhappy with this message, because spending more time in bed can make insomnia worse. 

This study shows that there is a direct connection between those two messages and that they are actually not in conflict. That is, we should all try to sleep enough, for us to be individually well-rested, but avoid spending more time in bed beyond that point, because it only creates poor sleep quality that’s similar to symptoms of insomnia. 

 

8) What’s the key takeaway for us to take from this research?

It isn’t possible to sleep ‘too much’ but it is possible to spend too long in bed. If you spend too long in bed, the quality of your sleep can suffer. 

 

9) Will you be doing anything differently because of this research? 

I think this study highlights we should give ourselves the opportunity for enough sleep every night and try to figure out where our equilibrium point of ‘enough sleep’ is. We should then try to protect our sleep time to achieve our required amount of sleep as much as possible.

 

Dr Yu Sun Bin is an epidemiologist and public health researcher. Her particular research interests are on sleep and circadian rhythms and how these biological systems are reflected in behaviour, health, and disease.

17/05/2022
Tayla Schuit
In All Articles, Dr Yu Sun Bin, Sleep

6 Evidence-Based Strategies For Optimising Your Sleep

Most researchers agree that adults need at least seven hours of sleep each night for proper cognitive and behavioural functions. Talk to people around you though and chances are many of them will identify sleep as something they struggle with. Like diet and exercise, sleep has a huge impact on our wellbeing. The good news is, we can actively work on our sleep habits and improve them. Sleep researcher, Dr Yu Sun Bin offers these 6 strategies for optimising your sleep.

#1 – Stick to a Sleep Schedule

Our circadian rhythm has a direct influence on when melatonin (the body’s sleep hormone) is released to help induce sleep. If your circadian rhythm is out of sync with the natural cycle of day and night, it can make it harder to fall asleep. 

The circadian rhythm is influenced mainly by light and dark, but also by your daily activities. Sticking to a consistent sleep cycle can help you avoid what is referred to as social jet lag. Social jet lag occurs when the time you want to go to sleep as dictated by your internal body clock doesn’t align with your actual sleep patterns due to work or social commitments.

To ensure your circadian rhythm stays in sync, try to stick to a reasonable and consistent time you go to bed and wake up every day, including weekends.

#2 – Take That Nap!

Life has its ups and downs and sometimes not being able to get enough sleep is out of our control. The good news is that naps are science-approved. It’s important to understand though what constitutes a good nap, when to nap, and how long we should be napping to avoid waking up feeling groggy or having sleep inertia. 

To increase alertness, the best time for most people to nap is between 2-4 pm, after your morning peak and as alertness is starting to decline. If you are sleep deprived, it’s generally good to get a nap earlier in the day. Science shows us that the ideal nap is generally short, between five to thirty minutes, with a ten-minute short nap having the best immediate benefit. 

The key to napping is keeping it light. You don’t want to allow your body to fall into a deep sleep, so set an alarm to wake up.

#3 – Avoid Caffeine in the Afternoon

Caffeine presents in the brain as a molecule similar in structure to adenosine, a chemical that builds up in the brain when we’re awake and affects how sleepy we feel. When we consume caffeine it blocks the receptors in the brain that normally receive the adenosine molecule, making us feel more alert. Once the caffeine wears off, the adenosine molecule re-attaches to the receptors, putting a sudden break to brain activity and making you feel tired or sluggish. 

Half the caffeine we consume is metabolised in about six hours. If you have a regular flat white at 2 pm, half of the caffeine will still be present in your system at 8 pm. This explains why drinking caffeine in the afternoon can disrupt your ability to fall asleep. 

To optimise your sleep, try to avoid caffeine after 2 pm, and if you would like to cut back on your caffeine intake, do it gradually to avoid withdrawal symptoms such as headaches.

#4 – Reduce Alcohol Intake

Many of us get caught in the alcohol sleep paradox and don’t even realise the effect it is having on our bodies. What is the alcohol sleep paradox you ask? Drinking alcohol is known to help us fall asleep, but what most people don’t realise is that it also contributes to disturbed sleep patterns as it increases our waking throughout the night. 

For the average adult who sleeps for eight hours a night, just four standard drinks can deprive you of ~50 minutes of quality sleep. 

#5 – Exercise Outdoors & Synchronize your Circadian Rhythm to Daylight

We all know that exercise has numerous health benefits. Yet not everyone is aware of the relationship between exercise and sleep. For instance, exercising at night can delay your bedtime as your body needs to lower its core temperature after exercise in order to induce sleep. 

Try fitting your higher intensity workouts in the morning when you first wake and stick to lower intensity workouts like light yoga in the evening to help you optimise your sleep.

#6 – Eat a Healthy Diet

Eating a healthy diet can help you optimise your sleep. Increase your intake of fish and whole foods that contain lots of protein and fibre. Protein and fibre contain an important amino acid called tryptophan which is used to produce melatonin, the human sleep hormone. 

Try to eat your dinner more than three hours before bedtime to give your body enough time to register that it’s full and allow you to metabolise your food properly.

 

Dr Sun Bin is an epidemiologist and public health researcher. Her particular research interests are on sleep and circadian rhythms and how these biological systems are reflected in behaviour, health, and disease.

28/02/2022
Tayla Schuit
In All Articles, Dr Yu Sun Bin, Sleep

Research Review: The Impact of Sleep on Self-Control

sleep and self-control

In this article, our expert Dr. Yu Sun Bin – reviews: Sleep and self-control: A systematic review and meta-analysis by Guarana et al 2021. 

 

1) What was the high-level summary of the research?

The quality and duration of our sleep affects our levels of self-control i.e., our ability to control our impulses and overcome temptations.

 

2) How was the study undertaken?

This study was a systematic review, which means that the researchers comprehensively searched the scientific literature for studies on sleep and self-control to try and synthesise (bring all of the evidence together to summarise) what we currently know and to identify where more research might be needed. 

The team of researchers then sorted through more than 1600 studies, focusing in on studies that tried to answer the question of whether sleep affects self-control. Specifically, the researchers used meta-analysis which means that they combined the numerical results from the studies to find an overall result. This overall result should be more reliable and more indicative of the true effect of sleep on self-control than the results of individual studies, which can be ‘noisy’ and throw up unusual findings by chance. 

 

3) What did the study find?

The researchers found 56 studies on sleep and self-control.

Researchers tend to think of self-control in two ways: first, as a somewhat stable trait of a person (akin to personality), and second, as something much more fluid, like a state-of-mind which can change from moment to moment (like mood). 

These two ways of thinking about self-control are important when it comes to understanding the results.

When the researchers examined the studies that considered sleep and self-control as stable traits, they found that people who get more sleep tend to have better self-control than people who get less sleep but that this was a weak relationship (correlation r=0.17*).

Similarly, people who have better quality sleep have better self-control than people with poorer quality sleep (r=0.26), this relationship is stronger than the one between sleep duration and self-control, but is still considered a weak to moderate strength relationship. This could be because there are other factors responsible for both better sleep and for self-control (e.g. shared genes); or could be due to reverse causality, that is because people with better self-control are also more organised and conscientious about their sleep habits, leading to better and more sleep on average. This result is less useful for us as individuals because we might not be able to change how much sleep we need personally or our personality.

When the researchers examined the studies that consider sleep and self-control as malleable states, both longer sleep duration and better sleep quality were again related to high levels of self-control (r=0.32, and r=0.35 respectively). This is the more important practical result, because it shows that when we have a good night’s sleep, we have a higher level of self-control the next day, compared to when we have a poor night’s sleep or not enough sleep.

Both of these relationships were stronger than the relationships we see for self-control as a trait, meaning that our self-control changes more in response to how our sleep changes from day-to-day, than differences in levels of self-control between people who naturally need different amounts of sleep. 

It is important to note that the majority of studies relied on research participants to self-report their sleep which might lead to biases in the results. However, the researchers also found that the relationship between sleep and self-control was stronger when sleep was measured objectively, indicating that the results are not due to the way that people report or perceive their own sleep. 

 

4) Is there any other research out there that supports these findings or contradicts it?

The broader scientific literature supports these findings. We know that when people are sleep-deprived, our ability to monitor our own thinking and behaviour is negatively affected. Lack of sleep particularly affects activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for our ability to be aware of our own thinking and to control conscious actions. Self-control involves being aware of our instincts (e.g. to have more cake) and to actively overcome those instincts (e.g. to tell ourselves we have had enough and to put away the cake for another day). 

The results of this study also show that sleep quality is more important than sleep duration when it comes to self-control. This is supported by research showing that quality of sleep is generally more important than amount of sleep for wellbeing; shorter sleep durations (e.g., 6 hours a night) may not be a bad thing if it is accompanied by good sleep quality. This is because people can have a range of different sleep needs, with 7-9 hours of sleep opportunity recommended for working-aged adults. 

 

5) How much weight should we give this research?

We should give the results of this study a lot of weight, because it systematically combines all the research that has been done so far on how sleep affects self-control. The main potential weakness of the study is that 32 of the 56 studies were correlational studies and these studies only show that sleep and self-control are correlated, not that sleep directly causes changes in self-control. With correlation studies, we cannot rule out the possibility of reverse causality i.e. that self-control causes better sleep. In the remaining 24 studies, researchers actively intervened to change the quality and duration of sleep in the research participants.

 

6) What does this mean for your work/research/industry?

This study opens up some interesting avenues for research. Having self-control is important for many aspects of life, including maintaining our health and for our success at work. It suggests that we should consider improving sleep as a way to improve people’s ability to self-regulate which in turn can enhance health and productivity. For health researchers, it suggests we should incorporate methods to improve sleep in programs that help people quit smoking or lose weight, as this could make them even more effective. 

 

7) What’s the key takeaway for us to take from this research?

The key takeaway is that having good quality sleep (of a sufficient duration) is important for enhancing self-control.

 

8) Will you be doing anything differently because of this research?

Personally, I think the study confirms what we all know from experience – and gives me an extra reason to make sure I get a good night’s sleep every night!

 

*Note: Correlations are used to estimate the strength of a relationship between two variables, specifically the degree to which one variable changes when another variable changes. If a correlation is zero, there is no relationship between two variables. The closer the correlation is to 1 or -1, the stronger the correlation between them. The correlation statistic used here is Pearson’s correlation. Correlations of 0.1 or 0.2 are considered weak, correlations of 0.3 to 0.6 are considered moderate, and correlations above 0.6 are considered strong.

 

Dr Yu Sun Bin is an epidemiologist and public health researcher. Her particular research interests are on sleep and circadian rhythms and how these biological systems are reflected in behaviour, health, and disease.

07/02/2022
Tayla Schuit
In All Articles, Dr Kieron Rooney, Nutrition, Sleep

Research Review: The Effect Of Sleep On Diet

Keiron - Sleep and Diet

In this article, our expert Dr. Kieron Rooney – reviews: Effect of sleep duration on dietary intake, desire to eat, measures of food intake and metabolic hormones: A systematic review of clinical trials, led by  Samira Soltanieh From the Department of clinical nutrition and dietetics, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

 

1) What was the high-level summary of the research? 

Individuals that have their sleep disrupted or who report naturally shorter sleep duration are more likely to also eat more. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what they eat more of, but in general, adults seem to snack on foods with higher fat content and teenagers on higher glycemic index (GI) sweet foods.  

2) What did the study try to measure? 

This study sought out as many studies as possible in which a person’s sleep duration and dietary habits were investigated. They then explored if there was any association between what people ate with how long they slept. 

3) How was the study undertaken? 

This study is referred to as a systematic review. The authors themselves did not implement a study in which they collected data from individuals with disturbed sleep. Instead, they searched for, identified, and synthesised studies that met their inclusion criteria, which had already been conducted by other investigators. 

The authors found over 700 studies and ended up identifying 50 studies that reported both food intake and sleep duration; 43 of these studies were on adults. Once the review authors had found these studies, they looked at the dietary data to see what the individuals in those studies were eating, and, how long they slept for. They also looked for any studies that reported on hunger and/or appetite and any studies that may have measured hormones believed to influence what humans eat.

4) What did the study find? 

The main result the authors focused on here was total energy intake. This was reported in 30 of the 50 studies they found. Most studies – 19 of the 30 – associated short sleep duration with a tendency to overeat. While some studies showed this was a result of eating larger meals other studies reported that it was a result of more snacks being eaten throughout the day. There was no clear indicator of which – larger meals or more snacks – was likely to be common in specific people.

There was also no clear indication as to which macronutrients – fat, protein, or carbohydrate – may have been contributing to the excess energy being consumed. The authors summarised the studies and suggested the extra energy was coming from either fat or protein rather than carbohydrates, yet the results were very much 50/50 on this. A big reason for the lack of clarity here is that the review included studies that induced sleep deprivation from as short as 1 night by keeping people awake with entertainment and keeping lights on all night compared to other studies in which sleep was restricted for over a month to only 6 hours a night.

5) Is there any other research out there that supports these findings or contradicts it? 

Absolutely, a 2017 systematic review was published that looked only at studies in which sleep was partially disturbed with reduced hours in bed. That review contained only 17 studies but they were so similar in design that the authors performed a meta-analysis. This is where the individual study results from each study are mathematically combined for each intervention, rather than simply being summarised such as in the present study. The smaller but more mathematically robust systematic review reported that even just partial sleep reduction of a couple of hours a night resulted in much greater energy intake with no effect on energy expenditure which was then concluded to lead to weight gain.

6) How much weight should we give this research?

This study is interesting and contains nearly three times the number of studies as the 2017 paper. However, the results of these studies are summarised rather than analysed and as such are very much open to interpretation. Despite this, this study provides a great resource for the complete repository of studies investigating the association between our diets and our sleep duration.

7) What does this mean for your work/research/industry? 

For me, I think this is interesting in the context of understanding why some people may find themselves eating more processed snacks than others. The big question that still needs answering is whether or not it is the disrupted sleep that promotes individuals to snack and eat more, or it’s the eating more that then disrupts sleep.

8) What’s the key takeaway for us to take from this research?

If you are looking for simple ways to cut your intake of processed high-energy snacks – get more than 6 hours of sleep a night! 

9) Will you be doing anything differently because of this research? 

Not so much differently – but perhaps I will start taking more sleep history surveys in my diet intervention studies.

 

Dr. Kieron Rooney completed his PhD in the Department of Biochemistry, within the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney. Kieron’s primary interest focuses on conducting research and using this research to educate others on how what we eat, influences our metabolism. 

01/07/2021
Lara Gray
In All Articles, Dr Tony Boutagy, Exercise, Sleep

Research Review: Why Sleep is Critical for a Healthy Body Composition

In this article, our expert Dr Tony Boutagy – reviews The effect of acute sleep deprivation on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and the hormonal environment by Séverine Lamon et al. 2021, and breaks it down to give us the vital parts we need to know. 

1) What was the high-level summary of the research?

A single night of sleep deprivation can induce considerable effects on, muscle breakdown (catabolism) – by causing a significant reduction in both muscle growth by 18% and the growth (anabolic) hormone testosterone by 24%. Further, the researchers found that the muscle breakdown (catabolic) stress hormone cortisol increased by 21%. 

The findings of this study provide the support for long-term observations that show that a reduction in sleep has negative consequences on body composition.

 

2) What did the study try to measure?

Inadequate sleep duration has been demonstrated in several studies to negatively impact numerous aspects of health, especially metabolism and brain function. 

For example, short sleep impairs how well you can control your blood glucose and increases the risk of developing type II diabetes while also reducing cognitive function and mental performance. 

Research has also demonstrated  poor body composition – increased fat mass and decreased muscle mass – in those individuals who sleep less than 6 hours per night. 

Human muscle is in a constant state of breaking down and rebuilding. If rebuilding occurs to a greater magnitude than the rate of breakdown, then we gain muscle tissue over time. Periods of marked inactivity or bed rest cause breakdown to exceed the rebuilding process, and the loss of muscle mass follows. 

To measure the short-term flux (breakdown vs. rebuilding) of muscle protein balance, researchers can examine the synthesis of new muscle proteins in response to a variety of interventions, such as exercise modes, food types and in this instance, sleep deprivation. 

This study aimed to explore the mechanisms that can cause the negative change in body composition observed in those who experience short duration sleep by investigating the effect of sleep deprivation on muscle mass. 

In addition to measuring the synthesis of muscle proteins in response to sleep deprivation, the researchers also examined the levels of the growth hormone, testosterone and the muscle breakdown (catabolic) stress hormone, cortisol.

 

3) How was the study undertaken?

Thirteen young adults who were sleeping on average 7 hours per night were studied under two conditions: (1) a full, normal night of sleep and (2) complete sleep deprivation. The sleep environment, temperature and provided food were all carefully controlled. The next day after both sleep conditions, small biopsies of muscle were taken, and blood was drawn to examine markers of protein synthesis and hormones.

 

4) What did the study find? 

This study found that one night of complete sleep deprivation resulted in an 18% reduction in muscle protein synthesis and this was accompanied by a decline of 24% in the growth (anabolic) hormone testosterone and a 21% elevation in the break down (catabolic) stress hormone cortisol.

 

5) Is there any other research out there that supports these findings or contradicts it? 

This study provides the actual mechanism behind the well-known observations that short sleep duration results in poor quality body composition. Previous investigations have observed reductions in muscle mass and testosterone and increases in cortisol with sleep restriction, and this study found the same using a model of complete sleep deprivation.

 

6) How much weight should we give this research?

This study used complete sleep deprivation as the intervention. Care should be given when attempting to extrapolate these results directly to those who have slept less than the recommended 7.5 to 9 hours per night. However, the results support previous research that has demonstrated reductions in muscle mass and an increase in fat mass when sleeping less than 6 hours per night. 

The protocols and methods used in this study provide what is considered to be the ‘gold standard’ level of evidence for providing a link between lack of sleep and muscle turnover, along with the hormones involved in this regulation. As such, we should take the results of this study seriously with respect to the lack of sleep and muscle health.

 

7) What does this mean for your work/research/industry? 

Often viewed as unimportant and wasted time, sleep has been demonstrated to play an extremely important role in maintaining our brain, metabolic and cardiovascular health. Studies like this one show how important sleep is to the quality of our muscle mass. 

 

8) What’s the key takeaway for us to take from this research?

Far from being wasted time, sleep duration should be a priority for those who consider muscle mass, and health in general, important. But don’t fear if you go through periods of your life when you are sleep deprived, such as raising small children or working hard to meet project deadlines. Just understand that over the long term in order to maintain a healthy body composition as you age, you must prioritise your sleep.

 

9) Will you be doing anything differently because of this research? 

No! I already knew how important sleep is to every aspect of our health and do my best to maintain a routine of an 8-hour sleep opportunity and a regular sleep-wake cycle every day, or as best as I can with 3 young children!

 

Tony Boutagy holds a PhD in exercise science, where his primary interest is in body composition and human performance. Dr. Boutagy shares his time between hands-on coaching in Sydney and online education on topics which include health, exercise and lifestyle.

18/05/2021
Lara Gray
In All Articles, Dr Nick Chartres, Mental health, Sleep

Research Review: Long Working Hours – The Leading Cause of Death in Workers

In this article, our expert Dr Nick Chartres – Director, Science & Policy, Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, at the University of  California San Francisco – reviews new research by The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the impact of long working hours, and breaks it down to give us the vital parts we need to know. 

 

Background

Preventing exposures to occupational risk factors, such as long working hours is critical to the health and safety of workers and should be a priority of governments and the private sector. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) are developing joint estimates (WHO/ILO Joint Estimates) of the work-related burden of disease and injury for ten different exposures and outcomes (e.g. long working hours and stroke). 

What did the study measure?

The first step of developing these estimates involved conducting systematic reviews (think gold standard reviews) of ALL of the evidence examining the relationship (level of risk) between working hours (a standard, 35-40 hours/week and long, three categories: 41–48, 49–54 and ≥55 h/week) and risk of heart disease and stroke. 

They then calculated the exposed global population by modelling data from more than 2300 surveys collected in 154 countries from 1970-2018. 

Finally they calculated the population-attributable fractions from estimates of the population exposed to long working hours with the risks on the diseases from the systematic reviews. 

What did the study find?

  • A 17% increase in risk of heart disease and a 35% increase in risk of stroke from working more than 55 hours/week when compared to a 35-40 hours/(standard) week.
  • About 9% of the world’s population works more than 55 hours/week.
  • 745,000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease were attributed to long working hours.
  • 72% of deaths occurred among males.
  • Most deaths recorded were among people dying aged 60-79 years, who had worked for > 55 hours/week between the ages of 45-74 years.
  • People living in the Western Pacific (China, South Korea, Australia and Japan among other countries) and Southeast Asia regions were most at risk.

How much weight should we give this research?

A LOT. This is the most rigorous evaluation of the evidence on this topic and cutting edge scientific methods were used to develop the Joint Estimates.

What’s the key takeaway from this research?

With approximately 9% of the world’s population working more than 55 hours/week it makes long working hours the occupational risk factor with the largest estimated burden. Long working hours are killing more people than cancer.

What does this mean for your work/research/industry? 

Governments must introduce and enforce maximum limits on working time. Working hours must become more flexible. The private sector must take collective action to protect the health of its workers.

 

13/05/2021
Lara Gray
In All Articles, Dr Kate Edwards, Exercise, Mental health, Sleep

Research Review: The Mixed Benefits of a Stressor-Free Life

In this article, our expert Dr Kate Edwards – Lecturer in Exercise and Sport Science at the University of Sydney – reviews the mixed benefits of a stressor-free life at Emotion 2021 Charles et al. and breaks it down to give us the vital parts we need to know. 

Background

A life with no stress, that might sound idyllic to some, but new research has shown it comes with some downsides too.

Most stress research has focussed on the effects of lots of stress, and mostly we find that high levels of stress have negative effects on physical and psychological heath. 

But what about no stress at all, would that be the healthiest possible option?

What did the study measure?

In this study researchers asked 2,804 people about their experience every day for a week and identified a group (10% of the whole) who reported no stress events at all. Then they looked at their health. 

What did the study find?

These people were pretty healthy, they reported higher levels of daily well-being (i.e., higher positive affect and lower negative affect) and fewer chronic illnesses than those who reported stressors. 

But they also had less active daily lives and lower levels of cognitive function. So why might a stress-fee life not be the greatest thing? 

Well, in this study the people identified as stress-free had less activity and less social connection. They both offered and received emotional support less often from others and they reported fewer daily positive experiences. 

So, it might be that life was stress free, but also more boring!

It’s not surprising that those with no stressors were less socially active, because it’s known that social interactions are the most common source of daily stress or uplifts. 

How much weight should we give this research?

What this study didn’t measure was participants social network size and they only measured over a one-week period, so more data is needed to generalise the findings further.

What’s the key takeaway from this research?

The finding that cognitive function was lower in stress free people might be related to the lower levels of activity and interaction, the old adage says ‘use it or lose it’ and that could be what’s being found here. If we don’t experience events (both positive and negative) we don’t get to solve problems, resolve an argument or think through the best options, and doing all those things help keep our brains functioning well.