The High Tech Way

The effects of sleep deprivation

Saw a segment on 60 minutes last night about the effects of sleep deprivation. Various studies showed the physiologic effects of sleep deprivation on humans ( and fruit flies).  The studies found that people who are sleep deprived:

• are hungrier and eat more, even though their caloric requirements remain unchanged
• are more at risk for Type 2 Diabetes (after just seven days of disturbed sleep, a young healthy human was having more trouble processing sugar)
• have slower reflexes (but don't realize it -- this was compared to how a drunk person doesn't realize they are impaired)
• have lower comprehension (but don't realize it)
• score lower on memory tests
• are less able to cope with negative images
• are less interested in sex

Among the interesting facts cited: In 1960 a study of 1 million people (I think it was americans, but I don't remember), found that the average amount of sleep they got per night was 8 hours.  In a recent follow up study that number had dropped to 6.7 hours.

And, on the anecdotal side of things, it was pointed out that sleep deprivation was a factor in many catastrophic accidents including the Exxon Valdez, Three Mile Island, and the Staten Island Ferry crash.

A sleep scientist from Berkeley found that those who got a good night's sleep performed BETTER on a simple memory test than they had the previous afternoon when they first saw the thing to be memorized.  He contended that those who get enough sleep would be more productive than those who tried to cheat sleep to get more done.

One of the scientists, an endocrinologist, whose study turned that healthy young man into a pre-diabetic in a week (but said he would go back to normal once he got regular sleep again), said that Sleep should be cited with Diet and Exercise as the third thing that people needed to pay attention to in order to stay healthy.

She noted that young people spend 100 minutes in deep sleep and that number gradually decreases as we get older.  By the time we are 50 we only spend 20 minutes in deep sleep a night. She speculated that perhaps that the decrease in deep sleep perhaps contributes to the aging process.

 

But today, (and I think particularly about the place we moved away from a year ago, Silicon Valley) it's a 24 hour culture.  People are working harder than ever, and have so many responsibilities outside of work as well.  And kids are way over-scheduled too.

I am not any better.  My life is so full, I don't know how to slow down anymore.  I keep trying to figure out how to squeeze a little more time out of my day.  One day I got up an hour earlier and ran on the treadmill.  It was great to get the exercise, but there was a price to pay too. One less hour of sleep.

I also know that when I am sleep deprived, as I was for James' first 5 or 6 months of life, I eat too much.  Perhaps that has contributed to my inability to drop any significant weight since I started trying in September.

James is still not sleeping through the night. For a while over the months I sat in the glider chair each time he woke up and fed him.  Now he just wakes up one time, but being back at work it is hard to sit in that glider chair.  So lately I've just been taking him into our bed where we both sleep from 4 am to 7 am, but not very well. 

I told the ladies at daycare about this today and they said that James is playing the mommy card. So I flirt with the idea of CIO, getting enough sleep, having time in the morning to exercise before everyone else wakes up (impossible when James is sleeping next to me.)  But just so hard to let go of my last baby, you know?

 

Massage for infertility?

Speaking of massage, back when we were trying to get pregnant I did all kinds of Google searches to find out if massage might be able to help.  I didn't really find anything. Certainly nothing like the studies that show acupuncture can increase your chances of success.

Because we did not do acupuncture during our first IVF, I went to get a massage on one of the days in between our egg retrieval and embryo transfer.  I told the massage therapist what I was doing. I don't know how much of it she understood. But she was awesomely sweet and gave me a crystal she'd bought a while back.  She said when she had seen it for sale she knew she was supposed to buy it for somebody and when she saw me she knew she was supposed to give it to me.

The massage itself relaxed me, which is always a good thing.  But I don't know if it contributed to our success in getting pregnant.

Of course the cycle was successful, but a bad amnio diagnosis followed. We terminated and started to get ready for an FET.  That's when I headed to the acupuncturist, thinking that this was my last chance.  We didn't have a ton of money for multiple IVFs and I wondered if my embryos were just too old to have any of them be good. 

My acupuncturist was awesome.  One of the things she recommended was a femoral massage, which is something you perform on yourself.   It is supposed to increase blood flow to the uterus and ovaries.   ONLY DO IT PRE-OVULATION OR RETRIEVAL and not in the second half of the cycle when you might be pregnant.

Here's a site that shows fertility acupuncturist and TCM doctor extraordinaire Randine Lewis's instructions on how do to femoral massage on yourself.

What a difference a year makes

Last year at this time Jack was four months old and had just mastered the technique of rolling over from back to front. When he did this for the first time, all wrapped in his Miracle Blanket, I was in a state of denial, hoping it had been a fluke. That’s because the Miracle Blanket was the only thing that calmed him down enough to sleep when the clock hit 6 pm and he went into one of those lengthy crying screaming colicky episodes that could last for an hour or two or three. But his ability to roll over meant the Miracle Blanket had suddenly become dangerous. What if he got trapped on his tummy while swaddled in the MB and couldn’t breathe? We weaned off the MB, though, and made it through what felt like an insurmountable challenge (amazing what things seem overwhelming when you are working full time, getting 4 hours of sleep a night, and have been afflicted with a parade of daycare colds.)

Anyway, I was thinking about this particular time today because David e-mailed me this picture of Jack in his Cat costume that he wore to daycare last Halloween when he was 4.5 months old. (One of his three costumes last year — cat, pumpkin and pea pod.) Out of character for him, he was a little crabby that day. (He was usually a happy guy during the day.) 

He looks so tiny in this picture compared to now.

Tonight when he was eating dinner (scrambled eggs, broccoli and applesauce — three of his faves), I was feeding him the applesauce and asked him, “More?” and for the first time ever he said “More” and made the hand sign for “more” (the only one I ever showed him, and I hadn’t shown it to him in months.)  I was very impressed.  What a difference from rolling over back to front to a year later actually saying and signing the word “more.”

But I think my favorite trick he does lately is this: Sometimes when he is picking up pieces of dry cat food out of the cat bowl I tell him, “Go give that to daddy. Daddy LOVES those.”  So he takes the single piece of cat food and carries it from the kitchen through the dining area into the living room where David is sacked out on the couch and hands the piece cat food to daddy. Daddy is always very grateful.

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Today my acupuncturist did the four gates — that is when she needles the fleshy part on the top of your hand between your thumb and index finger and the top of the foot between the big toe and second to maybe a half inch up from where the toes start. This is supposed to get the energy moving. I managed to leave the session feeling relaxed an energized — the opposite of how I felt when I went in — tired and wired.

She also said she’d been thinking about that exercise study and she thinks it’s stupid.  It was good to hear her say that too.