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Besides getting enough sleep, what can you do to improve the glymphatic function that removes waste from the brain? Providing mice with a wheel to exercise voluntarily has been shown to improve glymphatic clearance in aged mice, which reduces the build-up of amyloid deposits and improves cognitive performance. Your sleeping position may also change.
Studies in rats have shown that the natural sleep position of curling up on one's side promotes better glymphatic transmission than sleeping on one's back or stomach. People also tend to sleep on their sides most of the time, especially on their right and left sides compared to their backs or stomachs. This can maximize blood outflow from the brain. When we sleep on our right side, the right internal jugular vein, the main blood vessel in the neck that drains blood from the head, is wide open and the left jugular vein is partially collapsed, and vice versa. For most people, the right jugular vein is dominant, so sleeping on your right side can maximize brain drainage. Is it that important? People with neurodegenerative diseases, primarily mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, tend to sleep more lying down than people with normal cognitive abilities. About 72% spent at least two hours a night lying on their backs, compared to 37% of people with healthy brains, “raising the intriguing possibility that head position during sleep may influence the clearance of neurotoxic proteins from the brain.” “I raise it.
In crib deaths and sudden infant death syndrome, sleep position can be a lifesaver, leading to slogans like “go back to sleep” or, more morbidly, “face up to wake up.” It's too early for an adult song. (Perhaps “I’m lying on my side to avoid drawing a blank?”) The characteristic posture of people who have trouble sleeping is on their backs. Therefore, it may be sleep deprivation rather than posture itself that causes cognitive decline. Alternatively, the causal chain may be reversed as dementia deteriorates good sleep habits. Even though your sleeping position is important, tracking your movements in a sleep lab can take up a night. Self-reported sleeping positions have often been shown to be false. Once it has been proven that sleeping on your side benefits your brain, you can train yourself with so-called 'positional therapy', such as the 'tennis ball technique', where you sleep upside down with your shirt on and a ball in your breast pocket.
The uncertainty doesn't end with your sleeping position. The glymphatic mechanism itself quickly gained acceptance in the scientific community and popular press. However, this is controversial. It wasn't until 2019 that the first evidence was published that the glymphatic system discovered in rodents also exists in the human brain. Even the relationship between sleep and Alzheimer's disease can be best summarized in a recent neurology review titled “It's complex…” Yes, people who sleep less than 7 hours may have a higher risk of dementia, but people who sleep more than 8 hours may have a higher risk of dementia. Risk too. Rather, population studies have shown that long sleep duration (more than 8 to 9 hours) is generally more strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia than sleep of less than 5 to 6 hours.
The link between dementia and longer sleep duration may be reverse causal, with longer sleep duration due to changes in progenitor cells in the brain years before a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Long sleep duration may be a confounding factor, or it may be an indicator of an underlying health problem that is the real cause. For example, sleeping too much can be a sign of depression, which itself is a known risk factor for dementia. However, there is a plausible biological mechanism by which longer sleep duration may directly increase dementia risk. Long sleep duration, generally defined as sleeping more than eight hours a night, is associated with signs of systemic inflammation. interleukin 6. And both of these inflammatory markers are associated with an increased risk of dementia. Therefore, we need to find out much more about the role of the glymphatic system before we can make a conscious effort to adjust it.
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