Posted on March 5th, 2009 by Craig Maltby, Editor
Your immune health needs something in short supply these days: Sleep
I was having lunch with an old friend a while back, talking to her about my work communicating the immune balance story. “You know 
what? I haven’t been sick in years and you what I attribute that to?” she asked. “I get a solid 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night. I have to have that.” “Wow,” I thought. She’s a working mother with a highly successful career as part of a management team at a national consulting firm. That means she probably has to get up at 7:00 or so at the latest, which means she’s in bed by 9 or 9:30 each night.
Me, I couldn’t do that. I have to watch The Daily Show and part of Letterman for my nightly wind down, or at least read something before turning out the lights. My teenage daughters are up at 5:15 to get ready for jazz band rehearsal, so I’m always awakened by monster-turbo blow driers. I wrap the pillow around my head and try to make it until 6:o0, but who am I fooling? My quality sleep has ended at 5:15, giving me a grand total of about 6 hours. Not good, according to a lot of research.
The sleep issue is front and center now because our country’s economic stress is putting big stress on sleep levels. And sleep affects immune health. Here’s a broad overview of the general sleep issue. One excerpt: “The number of people who report getting eight hours of sleep on a regular basis has decreased, from 38 percent in 2001 to 28 percent today.”
And here is a summary of a newer UCLA study describing specific findings on how sleep deprivation impacts inflammation and immune cell signaling, with consquences for a number of chronic health conditions. “Loss of sleep, even for a few short hours during the night, can prompt one’s immune system to turn against healthy tissue and organs,” says the lead parapgraph. To quote one passage: “These data close an important gap in understanding the cellular mechanisms by which sleep loss enhances inflammatory biology in humans, with implications for understanding the association between sleep disturbance and risk of a wide spectrum of medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, certain cancers, and obesity.”
Can supplemental immune balancing help offset the physical risks for those of us who are under-shut-eyed?
