Housework After Sex, Not Sleep

Hold on to your seat belt for this one.

Professor Elwyn Isaac from England's University of Leeds has just discovered an astonishing behavior among fruit flies: after mating, females ditch their usual afternoon siesta in favor of engaging in intense foraging (ahem, that would be akin to domestic-type duties or housework). The trigger? A "sex peptide" that is produced in the males' accessory gland, the equivalent of the human prostate, and attaches itself to the surface of the sperm's tail.

This sex peptides appears to have a chemical effect on the female, preventing her from taking her usual afternoon nap. This suggests the behavioral change has a purpose: to prepare females for the birth of offspring, and ensure successful paternity after mating.

Okay, so maybe you're not so impressed about new tidbit about how the fruit fly - that buggy nuisance you see on rotting fruit and vegetables - mates and changes behavior. But fruit flies, if you recall from high school biology days, have been the center of attention in research circles for decades. For starters, the fruit fly's genome has been fully mapped, so wide ranging genetic studies are possible. In terms of sleep studies:

• They provide a good model for examining sleep behavior because they exhibit many of the hallmarks of mammalian sleep.


• Like (most of) us, they sleep deeply at night from which they're difficult to rouse and they have a preferred sleeping posture. They also enjoy afternoon naps.


• If they are sleep deprived, they show tiredness the next day.


• If fed caffeine, they stay awake, and they become drowsy if given antihistamines.

Women can rest easy. I don't think human sperm contains a similar sex peptide that inhibits sleep and triggers them to spring into household action. (Though many women do feel energized after sex and can be known to get up and go as compared to their male, sleepy counterparts.) Human females have a long nine months during which they can prepare for birth.

But I wonder, are there ingredients in human sperm yet to be identified that can chemically alter a woman's body? Help her to conceive? Prepare the body for pregnancy? A lot of research in the past decade has focused on estrogen's role in sperm (yes, men do produce estrogen, and lots of it in sperm). So I don't doubt we'll learn more with closer inspection. Fruit flies and all (let's not forget about the mice, too).

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

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When Power Snoring Exceeds a Power Saw

Think you've got it bad putting up with a snoring bed partner? Well, think again. This month a British woman has been recorded as one of her country's loudest snorers. Her snore is so loud that from a decibel standpoint, it's louder than a jet plane!

Impossible? Not at all. Though snoring rarely exceeds 85 decibels, sixty-year-old Jenny Chapman comes in at 111.6 decibels, which could drown out a spinning washing machine, diesel truck, and speeding express train.

People confuse decibels all the time, because they aren't "units" per se. A decibel is literally one-tenth of a bel - the number of bels (named after Alexander Graham Bell) being the common logarithm of the ratio of two powers. In other words, they measure a ratio of powers. Decibels do measure loudness, but it's best to think of them in terms of percentages because they aren't quantities of anything. Here's a list of common sounds and their associated decibels:

Decibel Level	Sounds
0	The softest sound a person can hear with normal hearing
10	Normal breathing
30	soft whisper
50	rainfall, refrigerator, large office
60	normal conversation
70	Some research suggests that any sound above this range can stimulate the nervous system
70 - 95	garbage disposal
75 - 85	flush toilet
80	doorbell, ringing telephone
80 - 90	blender
85	heavy traffic, noisy restaurant
110	car horn, baby crying, shouting in ear, power saw, leaf blower
120	thunder
170	shotgun
180	rocket launching from pad

So what can Jenny do to tone down the volume (and invite her poor husband back into bed who sleeps in another room)? She's been working on living a healthier life - cutting back on alcohol and food intake at night, and exercising more. Though snoring is a multi-factorial problem, studies have long proven that excess weight, alcohol use, and being too sedentary can trigger or exacerbate the problem. When Jenny manages to gain better control of her snoring, she won't just make her husband happy. But she'll also make herself happier. Less ferocious snoring means more restful sleep.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

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Andy Rooney on Sleep

dno1967 / CC BY 2.0

Yes, Andy, we do sleep about a third of our lives away.

And I agree, it would be nice to have a gauge on us to let us know when we need to get some shut eye or when we've had enough, much like a battery light that comes on to tell us it's time to charge a certain device for optimal use. Green means go. Red mean stop.

Earlier this month when Andy Rooney gave his classic spiel during the last segment of 60 Minutes, he talked about sleep. He doesn't quite understand why so many people have problems with sleep, especially since he "can sleep night or day, sitting, standing, or lying down" and he admits to falling asleep right at his desk or on a bus going across town. He can get along on 7 hours, and thinks that anyone who gets 9 hours or more is sleeping his or her life away.

Andy's quips were no doubt enjoyed by many. But a few big topics Andy failed to cover, though, are sleep's impact on:

• overall health;


• memory; and


• the ability to get things done (ahem, like work into your nineties and have the energy to go on television on a weekly basis).

But what about that "device" to tell us when we've had the perfect amount of sleep? Might I suggest:

• Signs of your battery is getting low: fatigue, sleepiness, low energy, need for caffeine, moodiness, inability to focus, difficult concentrating


• Signs of your battery has been charged properly: feeling refreshed when you wake up, having the energy to get through your day, not needing caffeine to stay awake, alert, and productive

Put simply: the body tells us when we need sleep. It's the "y" effect. When we're hungry, we eat, when we're thirsty, we drink, and when we're sleepy, we sleep - or at least we should. And I sense that Mr. Rooney knows that, alongside the other secrets to sound sleep. How else can he be so vibrant, focused, and productive at ninety years old?

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

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Pilot Fatigue to Blame?

If you learned upon landing that your plane's pilots had overshot the airport by 150 miles because they fell asleep at the controls, what would you feel?

Terrified?
Shocked?
Lucky?

I'd feel a mix of the above. In this week's latest hit to the airline industry, a Northwest flight to Minneapolis overshot its destination and pilot fatigue could be to blame. Of course, the pilots are saying they were in an argument at the time and that's the reason for the blunder (not that I'd like to see my pilots so distracted over a "debate" that they still overshoot the runway!).

Fatigue among pilots has been a recurring theme this year, punctuated earlier this year by the deadly crash near Buffalo that was partly blamed on fatigue (that crash was blamed on pilot error).

The Federal Aviation Administration is rewriting its rules that govern flight time for pilots and their required rest periods in order to reduce the chances of fatigue. It will be the first update to the rules in decades and will utilize research that wasn't available before.

Does that make me feel better the next time I fly?

A little, maybe. Trouble is, it can be hard to legislate such rules. And sometimes fatigue over a series of poorly slept nights can catch up to you days later. In other words, you could have a sleep-deprived weekend, feel okay on Monday but be a zombie on Tuesday when you're expected to perform - and the lives of countless others are in your hands.

I've written about shift workers a lot in the past. But those who have jobs that put the lives of many others at stake should be scrutinized to a much higher degree. If it's that easy to fall asleep at the controls of an airplane - without the airplane knowing (or its numerous flight attendants!), then I say, let's invent something that can keep check on that. With all the gadgets we have at our disposal today, can't we find one that can alert the crew on a flight when its captain has nodded off?

Just a thought. Now that would make me feel safer in the skies.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

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Tick-Tock: News about Your Clock

Chris Metcalf / CC BY 2.0

I love a study that debunks an old theory long believed true. Last week scientists at the University of Michigan came out with a bold statement: everything we know about the human biological clock is wrong.

According to these researchers, who hail from mathematics, the cells responsible for maintaining the clock in the part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei, or SCN, don't fire all day and night like previously thought. The cells that control the clock are silent during the day. Though these cells sustain an electrically excited state, they don't actually fire until a brief period around dusk, and then remain quiet throughout the night before releasing another burst of activity around dawn. Think of a clock that only chimes twice a day - because the time only needs to be announced at two particular times. The clock keeps ticking during the silent periods, to make sure the time is accurate when it is time for the chimes to sound.

This may not sound like big news for you (or even mean all that much), but it means a lot to people in sleep medicine and in general medicine for that matter. I've written often about biological clocks in the past. It's a fascinating area of research that has so many applications to everyday life. Consider how much your internal clock determines the quality of your life. And if you don't know what I mean by that, then here's a quick summary. All of the following relate to your internal clock:

• Your sleep/wake cycles.


• How refreshed you feel in the morning.


• How easy it is for you to fall asleep at night.


• Whether you can recover quickly from jet lag.


• The fate of a shift worker who has to be productive at odd hours.


• Whether you're a lark or an owl.


• Your mood and energy level.


• The strength of your immune system.


• Your ability to ward off diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer's.

It may seem unfathomable that your body's clock can influence diseases like cancer, but it's true. Think of your clock as your body's central pacemaker - a means by which the body can remain balanced and, in medical speak, in a state of homeostasis.

I expect future studies to validate some of this new information. It's been suggested that there's more than one clock in the body. Perhaps these math gurus should apply their mathematical model to these other clock ideas and see what emerges. Time will tell...tick-tock...

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

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