Tagged: health
New Study Shows Lack of Sleep Leads to Permanent Brain Damage
We all know that sleep is one of the best ways to restore our body. For example, when we become sick, we just lie in bed and sleep all day; or after a long day bustling between class, the gym, meetings, and extracurricular activities, our body yearns to fall into a deep slumber to restore itself to its peak state. Recently, it was published that the reason sleep is so restorative is because while we sleep, cerebrospinal fluid flows more efficiently through the brain, essentially “clearing” the brain of any metabolic waste products that build up during the day (for more on this, refer to the December 9th blog post). However, just as we all understand that great feeling of satisfaction that comes after the so rarely obtained 8-9 hour sleep cycle (yes, young college-aged adults should ideally be getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night), we also can all relate to the groggy, confused, cognitively impaired state that comes after the all-night cramming and three hours of sleep, and before the double espresso from Starbucks. Until recently, this chronic state of unrest considered normal by college students, shift workers, and truck drivers, wasn’t thought to have any long lasting damage; it was considered common knowledge that catching up on sleep during weekends or vacations made up for the hours of sleep lost during finals week. However, a new study published on March 18th in the Journal of Neuroscience refutes this; the study, out of University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, shows that chronic sleep loss may be much more destructive than previously thought, leading to permanent cell damage and neuronal death.
Addiction Annulled: A Brief Background on Cigarette Cessation
Tobacco use is widely considered to cause more preventable and premature deaths than any other factor in developed countries. In other words, a successful campaign against tobacco use would arguably save more lives globally than any other campaign for public health.
There are many different ways of consuming tobacco, but for the purposes of this paper only cigarette smoking will be discussed and will be referred to simply as “smoking.” It is well known that smoking causes a variety of serious negative health effects; all one has to do is look at the warning label on a box of cigarettes. Why then, in spite of the obvious dangers, do so many people continue to smoke? One reason is simply because smoking looks cool, mainly due to its glorification in popular culture. In a more recent phenomenon, it seems that lower numbers of smokers in the population have given smoking a unique, hipster image. While an important one, image is not the only factor preserving smoking’s popularity; the main factor can only be fully understood through neuroscience. It is a specific process occurring within the brain called addiction, or more technically drug dependence.
A Diet to Boost Your Brain's Performance
Our culture obsesses over self-image and appearance, and people are always trying to find the next miracle diet to make them thin, buff, and beautiful. However, tailoring a diet to ensure the fitness and optimal function of the most important organ, the brain, is just as important. The search for the perfect brain diet has yielded many different results, and now the Nerve Blog will give you the aggregated, ultimate, and effective diet for your brain. More
