I think we can all agree that one of the worst ways to start the work week is after getting a night of bad sleep. Unfortunately, that is the day-to-day reality for 1 out of 3 Britons. As a matter of fact, In a survey across 13 countries, the Brits got the worst sleep followed by the Irish, Canadians and Americans. Those with the best sleep? The Spanish and the Chinese. [1, 2]
But before you decide to move to Barcelona or Beijing, you might consider a very impressive sleep gadget I picked up while on a recent trip to LA: the ChiliPad.
This thin mattress topper has long loops of cool or warm water pumped through it while you sleep so that you are resting at exactly the right temperature to induce your best night's sleep.
How do I know? Because over the last two weeks of our British heatwave, I've gotten some of the best sleep of the last year, increasing the average time I spend in Deep Sleep from 45 to between 75 and 120 minutes each night.
Why Deep Sleep is Important
We now know that it is only when we are in deep sleep that our brain's glymphatic or waste removal system works to remove the toxic protein clumps or aggregates, like beta amyloid. When the brain doesn't remove these, it leads to the amyloid plaques that are the telltale hallmark of Alzheimer's. But there are other toxic wastes that are removed by the glymphatic system: proteins involved in other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Lewy body disease and multisystem atrophy [3].
According to Professor Maiken Nedergaard, the Danish neuroscientist who discovered the glymphatic system in 2013, we also know that "many patients with Alzheimer's experience sleep disturbances long before their dementia becomes apparent. In older individuals, sleep becomes more fragmented and shallow and lasts a shorter time." [3]
“Epidemiological studies have shown that patients who reported poor sleep in middle age were at greater risk for cognitive decline than control subjects when tested 25 years later.”
When Nedergaard's team injected mice with beta amyloid, they noticed that sleeping mice cleared the beta amyloid twice as fast as when they were awake. [4] In fact, a team from Stony Brook University and Yale Medical School noticed that when mice were under anesthesia, they were able to clear even more of these toxic proteins. [5]
Getting Cool Means Getting Sleep
It turns out that your brain can't just remove waste from the brain during any kind of sleep, but only when it's in slow wave or deep sleep. And how do you get into deep sleep? Only after your heart rate has slowed, your muscles have relaxed and your body temperature has dropped. [6]
The ChiliPad gets you 1/3 of the way there, by cooling you to the exact temperature - 15.5-18 degrees Celsius (60-65 degrees Fahrenheit) - that allows you to fall into deep sleep faster and longer. But don't take my word for it, take the US Tour de France team's: every member has had their own ChiliPad shipped out to France to ensure everyone is sleeping optimally and can perform at their best from the 7th - 29th of July 2018. They have been doing this since 2016 as a way to combat the heat in hotels without air conditioning. [7]
But even with air-conditioning, I like to use my ChiliPad. I sleep on a TempurPedic mattress chosen by my ultramarathon-running husband for comfort, but I find it traps the heat between my body and the bed even if I have thrown the covers off the bed. The ChiliPad keeps me optimally cool and in a better position to reach restorative deep sleep sooner.
Better Performance in Everything You Do
With 50% of Brits saying they don't even get enough sleep, let alone deep sleep [1,2], it seems the country as a whole could use these. For those of you addicted to your phone, a binge Netflix spree or just staying out late, remember that if you brain can't detoxify, it also can't optimize itself, much like the defragging you used to do to optimize your computer's memory and speed. According to the Journal of Special Operations Medicine (yes, as in the Navy Seals, Rangers, and all other branches of the American special forces), optimizing sleep is a strategy for optimizing performance. [8]
And if you're not on the battlefield, the Harvard Business Review even believes that sleep is more important than food. Business consultant, Tony Schwartz, reasons that you can go days without food, but you cannot go days without sleep. [9]
The next time you feel compelled to have a muffin you shouldn't, try taking a nap - preferably on a ChiliPad - to optimize performance instead.
Want to buy a ChiliPad? In the UK, look here. In the US and Canada, buy here. The American site is currently running a US$275 discount using code: ultimatesleep25.
If you want more sleep hacks, read my earlier sleep article on how to keep your Circadian rhythm working optimally and best prepare for a good night's sleep.
[1] https://www.aviva.com/newsroom/news-releases/2017/10/Sleepless-cities-revealed-as-one-in-three-adults-suffer-from-insomnia/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/nov/13/insomnia-health-warning-sleep-survey
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5347443/pdf/nihms844817.pdf
[4] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sleep-clears-brain
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28323163
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651462/
[7] http://uk.businessinsider.com/tour-de-france-riders-keep-cool-chilipad-2016-7?r=US&IR=T/#the-company-claims-the-chilipads-cool-to-as-low-as-55-degrees-f-and-warm-up-to-110-1
[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27045502
[9] https://hbr.org/2011/03/sleep-is-more-important-than-f
Photo credit: Erik Jan Leusink