The Results are in Dr. Sanjay Gupta | Rosalynn Carter’s Work Advocating for Mental Health
As the tributes of first lady Rosalynn Carter have come in, what’s struck me the most is her tireless work in advocating for mental health.
This is a guest post by WWSG exclusive speaker, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
With modern life so jam-packed with activities and stimulation, it is hard to completely unplug and relax. But that’s something our brain needs to repair and restore itself.
The one (mostly) surefire place for our brain to go for some downtime is slumberland. That’s why it’s crucial to get enough sleep.
“What’s going on in the brain, in layman’s terms, is essentially our brain is getting a chance to not be consciously engaged in … task switching all day long,” Victoria Garfield, a senior research fellow at the Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Aging and a professor at University College London, told me.
“Our cognitive function is going to improve as a result. And you’ll feel better the next day because our brain cells are having a chance to rest and regenerate and replenish,” she said.
Garfield has been studying sleep for a decade. “One of my primary interests for the last 10 years has been around understanding why we need to sleep properly, why sleep is so important for the brain and the body, especially as we get older,” she said.
Decades of evidence supports the idea that sleeping too little or too much is associated with increased risk of conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, having a heart attack, dementia, getting a sleep apnea diagnosis, anxiety and depression, she added.
Garfield’s team recently found that habitual daytime napping is also associated with a larger total brain volume. The study analyzed data, including MRIs, from more than 35,000 adults in the UK Biobank.
How much larger? According to Garfield, about 15 cubic centimeters, which her team calculated to equate to between 2.5 and 6.5 years of aging. “Quite a big thing in terms of the age of the brain. And we think that’s really important because a lower total brain volume is linked to certain diseases, earlier mortality and higher stress levels,” she said.
So next time someone gives you a hard time for taking a nap, let them know you’re just boosting your brain.
