Early to Rise
As I have thought many times, I am both blessed and cursed with an overactive mind. I have read up on sleep patterns and all the ancient proverbs about sleep and they all gravitate to the theme that it is healthier and more productive to set a pattern of sleep such that you go to bed earlier and rise earlier. Some say this is the wisdom of Ben Franklin, some say it goes back to Aristotle, but while both men are noted for using the turn of phrase about early to bed, early to rise making a man healthy, wealthy and wise, neither claimed credit for inventing the notion. In fact, everyone who has used that expression attributes it to something that has been known and understood for many years.
There is also a general but incorrect understanding that as we age, we need less sleep, but this is apparently not true. While sleep scientists acknowledge that different people have different constitutions and therefore require different amounts of sleep to operate at peak effectiveness, no one of sleep authority wants to confirm the myth that we need less, or more for that matter, sleep in our old age, What the students of slumber are willing to admit is that the various maladies of aging may very well imping on long and extended periods of rest. But the inverse is equally true. If you sleep too little it will have all sorts of negative effects on you, including shortening your lifespan. It is also said to contribute to weight gain, forgetfulness, aging and risk of illness. The one of these effects that is not intuitive is that of tendency for weight gain. Supposedly it has to do with hormone production, specifically those which message satiety and hunger and those which cause fat storage. Hormonal imbalances seem to be at the root of many of our issues and especially our sleep issues.
As I sit here at my office desk and look out to the north, I see a stationery and perfectly vertical rainbow in the sky over the nearest hill, which is about a mile from here. There are rain clouds out there and sunshine streaming in from the east, hence the rainbow. The verticality is interesting but I’m sure there are many reason why that could be. But now I notice that I am jiggling my legs back and forth. That could be because I haven’t dressed yet and it is a bit chilly this morning, but my sleep research has mentioned restless leg syndrome (RLS), so I’m now wondering whether this physical manifestation, which Kim would probably tell you I tend to get quite often is related to sleep issues or vice versa. The literature says there are no known causes, but that sleep scientists suspect that it is the result of a dopamine imbalance, so back to hormones, and a very special one at that.
The dopamine rabbit hole is quite a maze. The stuff figured prominently in the Robin Williams movie Awakenings, but like many of the mysteries of the human mind, its extended effects faded in and out of certainty. It’s list of potential impacts on the human condition sound a lot like the laundry list of cures offered by snake oil salesmen. There are impacts on the heart, blood, kidneys, gastrointestinal and neurological systems. As a neurotransmitter or chemical messenger it bears directly on mood, learning, motivation, attention, and… wait for it… movement. It is said to be one of the most important indicators of how we feel pleasure and that is supposedly connected to our thinking and planning capabilities. It helps us to strive for our goals, focus our attention and find things around us interesting and engaging. Without enough of it, we move towards a state of mental distress like depression and schizophrenia as well as an inability to control muscle movement (think Parkinson’s Disease). With too much of it we get aggressive and competitive to a fault as well as exhibiting poor impulse control and hence subject to addictions and binges. My guess is that dopamine is almost God-like in its ability to control who we are, what we do and what we are capable or willing to undertake.
I had a friend in the old days who came from a very religious family (his father was a minister). He had a son who was a terror as a child, always doing all the things that parents do not want their children to do, and doing them in the extreme. This friend used to commiserate with us at lunch that he was at his wit’s end as to how to handle his boy. One of his funniest stories was about when the boy did something particularly bad one Sunday afternoon after church service, his father sat him down to try to reason with him. I have always felt that once a child is old enough to be reasoned with, they are controllable and you can begin the parental duty of molding their character in positive ways. My friend obviously felt the need to do just that with his son. So he started by asking why the boy thought he had done what he did that day. The objective was to undermine the causality by laying it bare for discussion. The boy pondered the issue for a moment and then the light bulb went on over his head as he said with a sense of recognition and connectivity to what he was being taught that very morning, “the Devil made me do it.” The father was at a loss for words. The answer conformed with his hopes that the boy would recognize the wrongfulness of the action and it was consistent with the family’s preachings, but clearly it seemed to lack the element of responsibility that is needed to guide actions in the future. The boy skipped off into the yard somehow now knowing that the world was what it was and he was powerless to do otherwise.
Maybe dopamine is the Devil we have always looked for, but then again, maybe it can change garb and become the angel on our shoulder as well. It may be the cause of my jiggling legs, it may be the reason I overthink things and it may be the reason that when I wake up with 5 hours and 56 minutes of sleep, as I did this morning, I feel the need in my joints, muscles and brain to get out of bed and do something. My CPAP machine tells me exactly how long I have slept, and that is, once again, a blessing and a curse. If it had been 4 hours and 56 minutes I would have certainly tried to go back to bed for a few hours as I did yesterday. If it had been 6 hours and 56 minutes I would have gotten up from bed convinced that I had had a wonderful night’s sleep and would be at maximum performance for the day, as I was after I finally got up yesterday. If it had been 7 hours and 56 minutes I would have thought I was sleeping too much and needed to be careful not to overdo it. And if it had been anything longer than 8 hours I would have wondered if I was getting ill. But at 5 hours and 56 minutes I get up and ponder whether I am getting enough sleep and what effects it will have on me. I wonder if my need to get up and stretch my joints and muscles is a hormonal problem. I wonder if my need to look at my phone for messages or important news is a dopamine-driven compulsion. And then I wonder if I am just meant to be a person who is early to rise.
The funniest thing about all this is that it is now 8:12am, which is not particularly an early rising time and the fact that I succumbed to rise early has left me with a new blog post, but otherwise a normal start-time to my day and otherwise overly-examined life.