Sleep Loss = Depression (Some sciency type stuff!)

I'm usually fairly long-winded when I blog. It's a general weakness that involves ALWAYS giving long answers and an aversion to single syllable words. BUT I'm not going to tax your eyes today, friends. I just have a short, science-y snippet to share. This is taken from the book Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

"Perhaps most fascinating [about sleep loss], the emotional context of memory affects where it gets processed. Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories get processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine."

So, if you need another reason to go to bed earlier, there you go. Now get some sleep already!! (Says the mother of four small children, two of whom wake up at least three times a night. . .)

By Way of Update (Lessons Learned from Sleepless Nights)

So, if you are readers who also happen to know me in my real life (or you happen to also be a friend on Facebook or you are a family member) then you know that my toddler is going in for surgery on Thursday. J has obstructive sleep apnea caused by enlarged tonsils and adenoids. Since he is too young to have his tonsils removed the surgeon is only pulling out his adenoids but she is hopeful that this will do the trick. J has had sleep problems since he was born and all 21 months of his life have been a test of my endurance. I feel like I have a lot riding on this surgery--you know, like my sanity--and if this doesn't get us all some sleep I'm not sure what we'll do.

Anyway, I bring this up for a couple reasons:

1) to apologize for low quality blogging of late. All the sleepless nights have caught up with me and I feel like I'm hanging on by the skin of my teeth (forgive the use of a cliche. I'm tired.). The other day I told my father I was overcome by a tremendous sense of ennui but since reading this post by Patricia Karamesines I have come to realize that what I am feeling is torpor. My blog posts have really been reflecting my torpidity lately, sorry. Several readers have emailed me topics to muse on and I'm excited to get to those soon!

2) to explain the soapbox I'm about to get up on :)

*Warning* Soapbox!! *Warning*

Being awake a lot at night with a cranky baby (who is now a cranky toddler) has given me a lot of time to reflect. I've learned a lot about my patience threshold, the importance of napping (aka cognitive consolidation time), and--this is the most important one--the necessity of listening to your children.

Thanks to my PPD and my young age, I was completely lost with my first baby. Naturally I did what any good college graduate would do and scoured the library for parenting books and read them over and over and over. When I came across confident so-called parenting experts I believed them, regardless of their credentials. This was especially true when it came to sleep.

My oldest, N, was also a terrible sleeper. She would wake up every forty-five minutes at night and cry and cry. I would have to rock her endlessly while singing every Primary song I knew. A lot of the time I cried with her. I was exhausted and miserable and she was moody and anxious. I knew that sleep was part of the issue and, at the recommendation of lots of friends, I tried to "Ferber" her when she was six months old. It was a complete disaster. I remember putting earplugs in and sitting outside the house just to drown out her screams for a few minutes. She would cry for hours and hours. The book, and my friends, were confident that the method would work and that I just needed to give it time and no matter what I shouldn't give up and hold her. After three or four days I did give up and snuggled her to sleep and we resumed our truce of rocking and singing. Now, I don't think that N had acid reflux disease (like J) or sleep apnea (like J--he's a complicated kid!) but I do think that this reaction fits her personality. Because she is naturally anxious and distrustful she needs/needed a lot of reassurance that she would be okay. When she was ten months old she started having nightmares and night terrors. She could talk a bit by then and would tell me about them. When she woke up screaming at night I just went in and snuggled her because I knew that's what she needed. Around the same time she learned to fall asleep on her own. I don't think that's a coincidence.

My second, E, was a relatively good sleeper from the start--she would only wake up two or three times a night. More of an observer than an emoter, it took a lot to get her really wailing but once she started there was no turning back (that's still the truth to this day). I started working on my book about the Holocaust shortly after she was born and I found that it made me grateful for her. Reading and studying about all the women who lost children and who were forcibly sterilized made me cherish her and when she would wake at night I would hold her and love her and she usually settled back to sleep easily. And, on the occasions where I did let her cry, she would fall asleep.

J, is a special case because of all of his conditions (have I mentioned the eczema? Oi! The eczema!), but I had learned a lot from my first two and I was grateful for him. I felt like I could trust my gut a little more. J wouldn't/couldn't lay flat and had a lot of gas. He would startle and wake up screaming. He would flail his arms and scratch his face and rub his feet on any rough surface. He sounded honestly distressed. So he and I co-slept for the first 7 months of his life. I had always said that was something I would NEVER do, but it was the only thing that worked. I would prop myself up on pillows on the couch so I was sitting up and lay him across my chest and he would sleep. We would still pace the floor at night sometimes, but he was calm and I was calm. Once we started treating the acid reflux disease and the eczema he improved a lot and was able to nap. Since the new year we've been figuring out this whole sleep apnea thing and, while I am exhausted, I am so glad that I followed my intuition. And, you know, I'm still willing to hold him and calm him through the bad times because I know that's what he needs.

So here's the gist of my soapbox (in case you couldn't find it in the midst of all my ramblings): Listen to your kids. As children of God they come with an innate wisdom in their spirits. They'll tell you what they need if you stop and try to see things from their point of view and really listen. Throw out all the "experts" or anyone else who touts a one-size-fits-all answer. Each child is unique and will need an individualized approach. Don't be afraid to give them what they need--even if you don't understand why they need it. And never hesitate to be compassionate. Compassion can get you a long way in stressful situations. I think there is a communication between parent and child, something special that comes with that holy bond, your spirit and their spirit can understand each other. As long as you try to listen.

Oh, and if you're still reading, thanks for taking the time! You made my day :)

You Deserve Some Cognitive Consolidation Time

One of my favorite things: big words--especially when they mean specific things. Which is probably why I like medical jargon so much. Words like staphylococcal just look so pretty when you type them . . .

Ahem.

So my new love is actually three words: Cognitive Consolidation Time. Want to know what it means? Well, actually you can scrunch those three lovely (partially alliterated!) words into three little letters: nap.

I learned the phrase (say it with me now) "cognitive consolidation time" from Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's book, Sleepless in America: Is Your Child Misbehaving...or Missing Sleep? and while I'm still wondering how many of our parenting issues are sleep related, one thing I know for certain: I deserve a nap.

That's right, you heard me. I used DESERVE and NAP in the same sentence. According to Kurcinka, and some science, in order for your brain to process (or consolidate) all the stuff it's received it needs to shut down. How does the brain do this? Through sleep!

According to wikipedia, when we sleep all sorts of important things happen. When we don't sleep our bodies don't heal and our immune system slows down--some scientists even believe that people who don't get enough sleep actually end up shorter.

Of course the big news on sleep is how it affects the brain. Brain development, like the synapses and stuff, occurs when we are asleep. Memory functions and related cognitive functions like decision making and reasoning processes are also negatively affected when we lose sleep. This is what Kurcinka was talking about with cognitive consolidation time. According to Kurcinka's research, when we sleep our brains sort through all the decisions and reasons and, well, stuff of our days. When we don't sleep our brains can't sort and end up feeling jumbled. We get moody and anxious. Even depressed. (There is an established link between bipolar disorder and sleep.)

So, what's a person to do?

It's ironic, really. As I've been writing this my toddler, who has obstructive sleep apnea, has been waking up every twenty-ish minutes. It's taken me two hours to get these few paragraphs slammed out because I have to keep calming him down and putting him back to sleep. A lot of nights are like this for him. My two girls have nightmares and I usually end up sleeping on the couch with one or more little people tucked in next to me. I haven't gotten a solid night's rest in six years. Which is exactly why I'm writing this; to remind myself that I DESERVE a nap. The body has a natural dip in the early afternoon and I take advantage of it as often as I can. When the toddler goes down for his nap I turn on a movie for my girls and check out. You should too.

So, sleep more. Whether that means going to bed earlier or taking an afternoon nap (what would my husband's boss say if he found my husband power-napping in his cubical, I wonder), sleep more. Defend your sleep time. Don't feel bad when you lay down in the middle of the afternoon (or, if you've just had a baby or surgery, the middle of the morning and the middle of the afternoon). Even if it's Sunday and you have that quotation from President Benson about sleeping on the Sabbath running through your head, try to rest. Just tell people you are doing some important brain exercises. If they looked confused, just smile and say, "I'm taking some cognitive consolidation time." Hopefully, by the time they figure out what you mean, you'll be off to dreamland.


*This guy knows how to sneak in some zzzz's*

Staying up all night is GOOD for you!

I'm feeling down today. We had our carpets cleaned this morning and the flurry of activity related to that held the blues at bay until this afternoon. I was in the grocery store with my oldest and she was being so sweet and wonderful that I got depressed. I know, it doesn't make sense, but it was like all my love for her filled me up to bursting and it overwhelmed me and left me feeling, well, depressed. It was strange. This has happened on a few other occasions and I'm still trying to figure it out.

Anyway, I came home and tried to explain it to my husband. He gave me a hug and said that it was probably just the stress of trying to get the house clean for the carpet cleaners (yes, we had to clean for the cleaners!) and staying up late last night trying to finish my entries for the Irreantum contests. I told him he was probably right.

After all, it is conventional wisdom that if you aren't getting enough sleep you will end up depressed. I remember when I was leaving the hospital after the birth of my second and the nurse in charge of discharge information advised me to get at least five hours of sleep. She said that women who don't manage at least a five hour chunk of sleep are much more likely to end up with postpartum depression. Sleep, she said, was key to mood management.(Having had PPD with my first and perinatal depression with my second, I had a hard time not rolling my eyes. The story of PPD is so much more complicated than the amount of sleep a woman gets!) Then, just a couple months ago, when I was talking with my daughter's "feelings doctor" about whether or not my meds were still working for me, she suggested that I get 24 hours of sleep to give my system a boost. (Again, it was hard not to roll my eyes. How am I supposed to get 24 hours of sleep when I have three children?) The basic gist seems to be that sleep renews the body and refreshes the mind. But for depressed people this may not be the case.

It started in the late 1970s when a Swiss neurobiologist, Anna Wirz-Justice, recommended a sleepless night for a severely depressed patient. The results were quick and decisive. In the wee small hours of the morning the patient, who had previously been nearly comatose with depression, began talking and acting like, well, a normal person. Since then numerous studies have been done to test the effectiveness of sleep deprivation as therapy. The conclusions are intriguing. Supposedly 60% of depressed people see improvement within hours of skipping sleep.

Why it works is still a mystery. Some researchers suggest that glucose metabolism in the brain is the reason. Others say it has something to do with the way the depressed mind interacts with the REM cycle. Others suggest it has something to with how thyroid hormone is produced. (Sorry I lost the link to that last one.)

Counterintuitive as it may be, the whole sleep deprivation thing makes sense to me. I am constantly tired. I usually get around six hours of interrupted sleep and I'm yawning before I've finished dishing up my kids' breakfast. I almost always need a twenty minute power nap around 2:30 pm. I can usually rally for the bedtime reading and snuggling routine, but I'm exhausted by the time they are all down. I am always telling myself that I am going to get to bed early. But I don't. Turns out by about 9:00 pm I start perking up. My brain kicks back into gear and I find that I have a couple of hours of working time before I turn back into a zombie.

Of course there are couple hang-ups with sleep deprivation therapy. First, in almost all the studies, when patients returned to a normal sleep pattern (which is recommended since sleep deprivation is linked to diabetes and obesity) the depression returned. Second, it really isn't practical. Most of us live in families and work jobs. Staying up all night would work for me as long as I didn't have to drive anywhere. Or deal with children! Most experts seem to agree that this isn't a long term solution to depression. But, if you have a doctor that will supervise you and you are waiting for your meds to kick in or other therapy to start, this may be a treatment that works in the short term--it may give a glimmer of hope to someone who thought there wasn't any.

What do you guys think? I know some of you readers are way better educated than me and have more experience, any of you tried this? Be sure to comment and let me know.