Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!

Every one of us has a mysterious double life.

For about two thirds of the time we are conscious beings, thinking about the world within and without, and negotiating our ways through the obstacles of life. For the other one third of the time we are nearly lifeless lumps of flesh, unconscious to all things but our own fantasies, as we lie flat in bed asleep. We all know that sleep is prominent for health. But for an activity that consumes about 8 hours of daily of life, surprisingly little is opinion about the act of sleeping, or the way our culture teaches us to sleep. Sleep behavior, like all human activities, is defined by our culture.

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Sometimes, the practices taught by our culture can impact on the way our bodies function. As medical anthropologists, we investigate ways our cultural practices may be affecting our health. And we have found that the way we have been trained to sleep may be one of the most prominent causes of various diseases plaguing our society.

Of course, when you reconsider the culture of sleeping, it includes such isues as the distance of time to sleep, and time of day for sleep. Do you take frequent naps or do you sleep 8 hours straight? Do you sleep at night or during the day?

Other issues concern sleepwear. Do you sleep nude, or with pajamas or lingerie? Do you sleep in your underwear? Should the sheets be natural fabrics, such as cotton or silk, or is polyester okay? What about the detergent and fabric softeners used in the sheets, pillow case, and pj's?

Should you eat before you sleep? What is the impact of watching television before sleep? Should you take sleeping pills to help you sleep?

These are some of the culturally defined issues that help conclude how we sleep, all of which may have some potential impact on health. However, there is one cultural issue that tops the list of importance, and which may greatly conclude your condition status. It has to do with your sleep position. Are you sleeping on a firm, flat bed, face down, with your nose and eye compressed against the bed and pillow? Or are you on your back with your head slightly elevated, as is the case for many native cultures that use hammocks or other non-flat surfaces for sleep?

The conjecture we ask this last query is because the circulation to the head and brain is thoroughly related to your body position when sleeping.

We all have had a time of experiencing dizziness or lightheadedness when getting out of bed too quickly. This succeed is called orthostatic hypotension, and results from the fact that blood pressure falls when you lie down, and sudden raising of the head may temporarily deprive the brain of adequate blood pressure, resulting in the dizziness or lightheadedness. The blood pressure soon rises, increasing the blood furnish to the brain, as you feel general again.

This phenomenon shows that the body's position, relative to gravity, influences head and brain circulation. You can also demonstrate this by doing a head stand, which many yoga practitioners do daily. Intracranial pressure rises dramatically, as blood rushes to the head, which becomes beet red, and the neck veins swell out, as blood pools in the venous system.

But apart from these examples, very little, if anything, is mentioned in medical physiology textbooks about gravity and its impact on circulation. Yet, you cannot fully understand brain circulation without considering gravity.

The succeed of gravity on brain circulation is purely mechanical, and relates to the position of the head relative to the pumping heart. When we are standing up, the head is above the heart, so blood must pump against the force of gravity -- from the heart to the brain -- lowering the effective pressure with which the arterial blood is delivered to the brain. Meanwhile, drainage of blood from the brain to the heart is facilitated by the pull of gravity.

In contrast, when we lie down and are horizontal, the heart and head are now on the same plane. This eliminates the effects of gravity on brain circulation. Blood from the heart pumps powerfully into the head without gravity's resistance, increasing intracranial pressure. And blood returning from the brain to the heart must do so without gravity's assistance, causing a back-up of blood in the brain.

Essentially, intracranial pressure increases, and overall brain circulation diminishes, when you are lying flat compared to standing up.

Of course, the body is involving and has mechanisms for controlling brain pressure under distinct gravity situations. When the brain gets pressurized from lying down, there are various pressure receptors in the head and neck designed to lower blood pressure, thereby preventing too much brain pressure and the possibility of blowing a blood vessel or creating a cerebral aneurysm. This is why blood pressure is lower when we are sleeping, and horizontal.

But these brain mechanisms for adjusting pressure have their limits. As we go through the day in a vertical position, gravity relentlessly pulls our body's fluids downwards, which is why many citizen have swollen feet and ankles by day's end. Once we lie down, the gravity succeed is lost, as fluid leaves the legs and returns to the head. So despite our brains general defense mechanisms, throughout the night intracranial pressure increases and is top in the morning, after hours of lying flat, and lowest at the end of the day, after hours of being vertical.

What happens when intracranial pressure is high from long periods of lying flat? The increased arterial pressure causes extra cerebral spinal fluid to form in the brain's ventricles, increasing intracranial fluid pressure. The ventricles swell and the cells of the brain come to be bathed in excess fluid, essentially causing brain edema. This edema would lower the ready oxygen and sugar for brain cells. The lack of gravity assisted drainage from the brain would cause a back-up of blood in the venous principles and collecting sinuses in the brain. The brain's circulation would come to be relatively stagnant, as the only force involving blood through would be the pushing force of the arterial pressure (which is greatly reduced after going through the cerebral circulation) and the sucking force of the heart's right atrium. And in increasing to the brain swelling under the pressure, the eyes, ears, face, sinuses, gums -- the entire head -- will come to be pressurized and the tissues congested with fluid!

There is one field of rehabilitation that avidly studies this succeed of gravity on physiology. That sub-specialty is Space Medicine. Astronauts in space are in a zero-gravity field, and it is known that this causes blood to shift to the head and brain, causing increased brain pressure and together with migraines, glaucoma, Meniere's disease, and other problems related with a pressurized, congested brain. To study the negative effects of zero-gravity here on Earth, these space scientists have citizen lie down flat! However, since rehabilitation is so wide a field, with sub-specialists studying more and more about less and less, there is little transfer of ideas in the middle of space rehabilitation and Earth-bound medicine. Otherwise, someone would have realized that lying flat is what we do when we sleep. If it causes problems for astronauts, then couldn't it cause problems for everybody else?

We found out about this Space investigate while we performed our own investigate into sleep positions as a potential cause of migraines. We hypothesized that sleeping too flat for too long each night could lead to brain pressure and fluid accumulation (edema) within the brain tissue, with related hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The brain cannot function well without proper amounts of oxygen or sugar, and this condition would be at its worst in the morning, which is when most migraines occur.

While migraines have been opinion of as a pathological phenomenon, it is also potential that the throbbing head is the brain's defense mechanism to receive new blood along with sugar and oxygen. After all, the only way the brain can get what it needs is from the bloodstream, and during a throbbing head arteries to the head open up and send blood with force throughout the brain. Perhaps, we reasoned, the throbbing head is a type of urgency "brain flush", replacing old blood with new. If so, could we preclude migraines by having throbbing head sufferers sleep with their heads slightly elevated?

We tested our principles by having about 100 volunteer migraineurs sleep with the heads of their beds elevated, from 10-30 degrees. Head elevation, we theorized, would heighten the brain circulation by providing some gravity aid to drainage. Interestingly, we found that Space rehabilitation researchers discovered that brain circulation (and heart pumping) is optimal at a 30-degree head of bed elevation.

To our amazement, we found that the majority of the migraineurs in our study experienced relief by this simple sleep position change! Many had no new migraines, after being throbbing head sufferers for 30 or more years! The results were very fast, within a few days. And there were very involving side effects, too. Our volunteers woke up more alert. Morning sinus congestion was significantly reduced for most people. Some reported that they no longer had unavoidable allergies. Could we have discovered the real purpose and cause of migraines?

The implications of these findings were, frankly, marvelous to us. So many diseases are related to increased brain pressure of "unknown" cause. Sleep position was never studied as the cause of this increased pressure. The implications go far beyond the prevention and rehabilitation of migraines. Any condition that is related to brain pressure, and that is normally worse in the morning after a night of horizontal time, can be potentially related to this gravity and sleep position issue.

Keep in mind that the brain is the central nervous principles controlling and modifying all physical functions. If unavoidable centers of the brain are congested and pressurized daily by sleeping too flat for long hours, those centers can malfunction. Depending on the way a someone sleeps, the idiosyncrasies of their brain circulation, and other variables, distinct citizen might sense this brain pressure differently. For some, the respiratory centers of the hypothalamus might be particularly congested, resulting in Sudden baby Death Syndrome (which has been related with head and body position while sleeping), sleep apnea, or even asthma. Sleep apnea has been shown to be treatable with changes in sleep position.

Strokes are clearly related with brain pressure, and normally occur at night or in the early morning, while sleeping. This is when brain pressure is highest.

Glaucoma is clearly caused by this mechanism. It is already known that eye pressure increases when the head is down, and decreases when the head is up. It is essential to note the head position when taking eye pressure readings because of this sensitive connection in the middle of intraocular pressure and head position. Eye pressure is also top in the early morning. Elevating the head while sleeping should be disposition for glaucoma rehabilitation and prevention.

Baggy eyes and sinus congestion seem to be related to head pressure. Just as the brain gets extra pressure when lying down, the head and face are pressurized, too. citizen with these problems normally find immediate relief by sleeping elevated 10-30 degrees.

Alzheimer's disease, we believe, might be the end disease caused by continuing brain congestion and pressure from flat sleeping. The cerebral ventricles of the Alzheimer's brain are expanded, suggesting a history of ventricular pressure, and generalized lesions along the ventricles may indicate areas of brain tissue that have deteriorated from this continuing pressure. Other investigate has already shown Alzheimer's is related with increased brain pressure, but the cause has been considered unknown, as is the case with almost all brain pressure problems.

It should be noted that the blood-brain fence cannot function properly when pressurized. inordinate intracranial pressure can cause leaks in this fence by increasing the basement membrane, allowing heavy metals, e.g., aluminum and mercury, as well as viruses and bacteria, to enter the brain that would have otherwise been excluded. This may be why heavy metals have been related with unavoidable brain problems, such as Alzheimer's.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known to be related with congestion of the "impulse center" within the brain that helps control behavior. We found any children with Adhd sense profound revision of self control by elevating their heads while sleeping.

In increasing to head position relative to gravity, we also have found side or belly sleeping can originate problems. For example, we found any cases of carpel tunnel syndrome related to sleeping on the hands or wrists, and shoulder pain from sleeping on the side. And keep in mind that head pressure increases, and drainage diminishes, when the head is rotated to the side. Sleeping on the back avoids compression of limbs and internal organs.

It is also involving to note that patients with asymmetrical problems will typically be worse on the side they sleep on. For example, eye analysis will be worse in the eye on the side of the face that is slept on most. Ear infections will be worse on the "down" ear. You can also tell the side a someone sleeps on by observing the shape of the nose. Apart from injuries, the nose should be symmetrical, but becomes curved away from the pillow because of sleeping on the side of the face and pressing on the nose for hours each night. The nose will point away from the side that is most slept on.

Men should be told that side sleeping may succeed in testicular compression and potential dysfunction. And women who sleep on their sides or stomachs branch their breasts to compression and impaired circulation. Side sleepers may have more breast trouble on the side they sleep on.

We should forewarn the practitioner, however, that, while the succeed of elevating the head while sleeping will be dramatic and transformative for many patients and should be considered essential to disease prevention strategies, the fact is that many citizen resist changing their sleep behaviors. They have been conditioned to sleep a unavoidable way since birth. And even when they want to turn their sleep position, it's difficult to ensure compliancy when the branch is unconscious! It takes grand will power to alter sleep behavior. But it is well worth the trouble, as citizen normally see within a week of sleeping elevated.

We found the best methods for head elevation consist of using more pillows, using a foam wedge, placing blocks under the legs of the bed frame at the head of the bed, or using an adjustable bed. While the ideal position is with the head from 10-30 degrees elevated, 10 degrees elevation is fine to start with. The legs should be slightly elevated, too, and the someone should try to stay on his or her back as much as possible. The ideal position is one you would be in if leaning back in a recliner chair. (Recliners would be fine to use, too, but they normally give poor lower back support.) Also, be aware that some citizen will find one degree of elevation more comfortable than another. citizen with low blood pressure may need their heads lower than those with higher blood pressure. Others may have some neck and shoulder ache from the new position. However, by experimenting with pillows under the arms, underneath the buttocks (which prevents sliding down the bed), and under the feet and legs, the patient should find a comfortable solution.

Also, when taking in to succeed patient history, perceive that neck injuries and tight neck muscles can impair venous drainage of the brain by compression of the jugular veins by the tight muscles. Neck massage and spinal adjustments may help heighten overall brain circulation. We have had a few case histories where there was little or no revision from head elevation, but the subjects had a history of neck injuries.

Of course, there will be times when citizen feel lightheaded and need to lie down to get more blood to the head. It might also be good for citizen to sleep less at night and to make up for lost sleep with a nap, or a siesta, during the day. That would avoid extremes of high and low brain pressure. But our culture makes it essential for most citizen to do all their sleeping at once. Sleeping, after all, is a cultural issue. The point is to be aware of how you feel, and perceive that your body position relative to gravity may be a key factor affecting condition and disease.

We are continuing to investigate this succeed of gravity and sleep position on health, and encourage practitioners to characterize their patients' experiences with us. We also extremely encourage you to read our book, Get It Up! Revealing the simple Surprising Lifestyle that Causes Migraines, Alzheimer's, Stroke, Glaucoma, Sleep Apnea, Impotence, and More! (Iscd Press, 2001), where we discuss the profound implications of this theory, including a lengthy list of references about brain pressure and various diseases and the succeed of gravity on brain circulation. After you see the evidence, you will probably be as amazed as we are that sleep investigate has been ignoring this essential aspect of sleep.

Sleeping too flat each day may be the most lifestyle mistake citizen are manufacture in our culture. Some of the worst diseases of our time may be all in our bed!

Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!