Night Time Health Facts
August 29, 2007 by Sara Ost
Filed under Misc., Science, Theme Days, Your Body
Buenos Suenos
The average person has between 4 and 6 dreams each night.
Working the graveyard shift increases your risk of cancer! Right?
Nope. A few studies in recent years linked the night shift to a higher risk for breast, colon and prostate cancers, but a recent review of 3.2 million people overturns the old findings.
Working graveyard is still more dangerous than working during the day.
Yep. Working the night shift increases your likelihood of hormonal imbalances, psychological distress, sleep disorders, cardiovascular disease, and gastrointestinal problems. Hormones most commonly affected: adrenaline, cortisol, testosterone, and melatonin. However, it appears that shift dissatisfaction may have as much or even more to do with subsequent health problems than actual disruptions caused by nighttime light exposure. Unfortunately, say scientists, it becomes a vicious cycle. If you work odd hours, here are some tips to stay healthy.
Biorhythms
Do you know yours? Learn here.
Are you a night owl?
Your DNA might be to blame: scientists have discovered the night owl gene. Night owls do tend to suffer from more sleep irregularities and insomnia than early birds.
Your brain learns more at night.
This is why cramming the night before a test – not the day of! – actually works. Your brain is more receptive in the evening. (No wonder prime time TV ads are so expensive.)
I didn’t inhale.
Weird side effects of some sleeping pills include wolfing down cigarettes.
Sleepwalking
10% of people will sleepwalk at least once in their lives.
Thanks for the buzz kill.
Babies born at night are more likely to die.
Want to improve your night vision?
Just don’t tell us why. Click for the tutorial plus a vegan joke.
Improve Your Night Vision – Funny bloopers R us
Aw, you remembered us vegans..!
The biorhythms chart is an interesting find…Linking back to the “when we eat” article was a good choice too. I’ve heard/read that there’s a correlation between when we eat our last meal of our day and when we go to sleep. Our bodies slow down when we sleep, naturally, including the metabolism; eating and drinking a lot before we go to bed causes us to convert a lot of that into body fat, regardless of the healthy nature of the food eaten. If you’re looking to prevent “unconscious” weight gain, it may be more effective to eat somewhere around three hours prior to when you bed down for the night.
Hi Steve! Thanks for the nice comments. Glad you found the post useful. I am not sure about food being converted to fat more readily at night (I can look into it for you – or do you have a source? I’d be interested in learning about that). I do know that digestion is easier if you don’t go straight to sleep after eating.
Here’s an article listing ways to gain body fat, the whole “sleep after eating” thing being number one on the list:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/betteru37.htm
I didn’t see any sources for the article, though, so it’ doesn’t really add to the notion’s credibility. But I first learned about the phenomenon from a health professor in college, years ago, if that’s any consolation…
Um, did a tidbit more research, and as it turns out the author refines his inclusion of item #1 in the discussion forums, based on comments like this from readers:
“The article is alright except for point no. 1). If you don’t eat before you sleep your body will go into a catabolic, muscle wasting state. He should have stated that you should be eating slow digesting proteins e.g. casein (milk, casein protein powder, cottage cheese) and healthy fats to slow down amino acid release into the bloodstream even further, e.g. fish/flax seed oils, at this time.”
Eating slow-burning proteins at night don’t seem to increase fat storage, and can apparently lessen muscle loss due to lack of food; but a night out drinking beer and that ‘fourthmeal’ stop at a typical fast food joint just before you hit the sack will, being that there’s little unrefined nutrients (as in, foods not processed and refined) present in most fast food and 24-hour diner fare.
Steve, you’re awesome! Thanks so much for the legwork