"Anti-aging" Author: Yu Guoliang
In the previous sections, we focused on two key points to resist aging and maintain a youthful appearance: "keep your mouth shut" and "open your legs".
So, in this section, let's talk about the third point: how to rejuvenate your body by "getting a good night's sleep".
You can sleep to get smarter
Chinese have long noticed the correlation between sleep and health, and believe that good sleep is good health. There is a folk proverb called: "If you eat ginseng, it is better to sleep five watches." Lu You, the great poet of the Southern Song Dynasty, also wrote a poem: "If the priest of Huashan is allowed to see, he does not look for immortals and sleeps." "It's all about the importance of sleep.
In the past, people thought that sleep was rest, including neurons in the brain, which were also in a resting state and resting state during sleep. However, modern medical research believes that sleep is another "active" state of the brain, and once the body falls asleep, the scavenger function in the brain begins to kick in, helping the brain to clean up waste products produced during metabolism during the day.
So, if we suffer from insomnia for a long time, resulting in these metabolic wastes not being cleaned up in time, what will be the consequences? In the short term, the brain will not be able to turn, mental fatigue, learning ability and decision-making ability will plummet. If this condition persists, it can lead to migraines, seizures, and in severe cases, death.
The latest scientific research has also confirmed that sleep deprivation can have a serious impact on memory. Researchers at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva in Switzerland explained that the brain temporarily stores the information it receives during the day in the hippocampus until the body enters a deep sleep, and then the hippocampus sends this information back to the cerebral cortex.
This is equivalent to putting some temporary work results into a USB flash drive, and then uploading them to the server or cloud at the end. The hippocampus of the brain stores only temporary traces of recent events, and only after the body falls asleep does it establish a dialogue with the cerebral cortex, replay it to delete useless information, and generate useful information into long-term memory.
Also, dreaming while sleeping helps in inventing and inventing. Many people see dreams as mysterious, but they are just normal physiological phenomena. Our brain cells are active all the time, and when they fall into deep sleep, they will integrate some thoughts and memories during the day to form dreams, so dreams are always ethereal and illogical.
Modern neuroscience experiments have shown that not only humans, but also animals with vision such as cows, sheep, deer, bears, etc., will dream, because dreaming can protect visual function. As we mentioned earlier, we have 8 hours in the dark of the night, and if we "can't see" anything, the cells in the brain that are responsible for vision will be invaded.
So dreaming becomes the brain's way of protecting the visual cortex from encroachment at night. Roughly every hour and a half, the relevant neurons come active, allowing our visual cortex to assert sovereignty. The brain will interweave and fuse the fragments of memories in daily life to form some strange visual stories to tell to the brain.
But these strange things are likely to make us pay attention to the details that we overlooked during the day, and then collide with wonderful sparks of invention. For example, Mendeleev, who invented the periodic table of chemical elements, was inspired by a poker game in his dream, which allowed him to successfully predict 11 unknown elements. There is also the German chemist Kekule, who dreamed of an Ouroboros in a dream, and then came up with the molecular structure of the organic compound benzene.
So, don't underestimate the significance of dreaming for innovation, and when a problem can't be solved, it might be better to get some sleep.
Quantify management and improve sleep
Although sleep is so important, many people suffer from insomnia. In contrast, Yu Guoliang is happy, because he can fall asleep with a pillow, and he sleeps well. But he later found that there was still a gap between this self-feeling and the data recorded by the meter, and his sleep quality was not as good as he thought.
There are many sleep monitoring services on the market, the first type is the mobile phone APP, which is to carry out sleep monitoring and guidance through the sensors that come with the mobile phone; The second category is wearable devices, which are monitored through devices such as smart watches or bracelets; The third type is the attaching of various sensors to pillows, sheets, or bedsides for sleep monitoring.
Yu Guoliang chose to wear a smart watch to measure his heartbeat and sleep depth. Before going to bed, he will keep the watch fully charged to ensure that the data can be recorded until dawn. The next day, he will combine this data to identify deficiencies in his sleep management and optimize them.
For example, one day, his sleep monitoring report is as follows: 1. The sleep duration is 7 hours and 35 minutes, which is up to standard; 2. The compliance rate for three consecutive days is 96%; 3. Light sleep and deep sleep are average; 4. The sleep time with good rest is only 4 hours and 15 minutes, accounting for 56%; 5. The average sleeping heart rate is 55 beats per minute, which is 16% lower than the awake heart rate.
In this set of data, he did not meet the target with two indicators: one is the third indicator, good sleep is more light sleep in the first half of the night, more deep sleep in the second half of the night and longer time, Yu Guoliang woke up twice in the middle; The second is the fifth indicator, the heart rate during sleep should be less than 20% lower than the heart rate when awake.
After the monitoring results are available, we need to analyze the causes that affect the quality of sleep and improve them. For example, Yu Guoliang found that heavy drinking has a negative effect on his sleep quality, and doing appropriate stretching exercises is good for sleep. Therefore, he tries not to drink alcohol in the evening, and at the same time puts some stretching training in the evening.
Of course, Yu Guoliang's sleep quality is generally good. If the sleep problem is more serious, he suggested that we go to the hospital to do a comprehensive sleep test, that is, to monitor more than 10 physiological signals such as electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram, electromyography, eye movement, chest and abdominal breathing tension, mouth and nose ventilation, body movement, blood oxygen saturation, etc., so as to scientifically and comprehensively evaluate the sleep quality and find the existing problems.
So, what are some of the factors that can seriously affect sleep quality? The first type of factors are physiological factors, such as the elderly need to wake up often at night, obese people wake up with apnea due to snoring, people who grind their teeth wake up because of facial muscle tension, and some people are frequently woken up by noise, resulting in incomplete and fragmented sleep cycles.
Sometimes long-term insomnia is caused by a medical condition. For example, restless legs syndrome, which causes patients to have a strong feeling of discomfort in the legs when they fall asleep, can only be relieved by non-stop activity. There is also apnea syndrome, as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which makes patients unable to sleep and sleep poorly because of respiratory distress.
There are also sleep problems that are psychological and require relaxation. For example, some people will be anxious due to insomnia, and the more anxious they are, the more they can't sleep, and the more they can't sleep, the more anxious they are, forming a vicious circle. At this point, the doctor will recommend cognitive therapy and relaxation therapy, which is to learn to eliminate this anxiety and relax the body through abdominal breathing, meditation and deep breathing.
Finally, Yu Guoliang also provided a sleep-promoting tip to relax and sleep peacefully by changing the environment, such as rearranging the bedroom environment, using cool colors, and listening to simple, harmonious and soothing light music before going to bed to help relax tense nerves and relieve insomnia symptoms to a certain extent.
Deal positively with stress and build intimacy
As we mentioned earlier, many sleep problems are caused by psychological disorders, such as anxiety, pain, sadness, nervousness, depression, and so on. On the contrary, a person who is emotionally stable, happy and cheerful tends to have a higher quality of sleep. Therefore, Yu Guoliang said that happiness is a precious treasure and the best gift we can give ourselves.
In fact, happiness is also an ability, especially in the face of stress, and it is important to maintain emotional stability. Someone once folded his fingers and complained: "How can our generation be happy because they can't afford to buy a house, can't find a satisfying job, and don't dare to talk about a partner, get married, or have children?" In their view, "stress" is the root of all evil.
As a person who has come over, Yu Guoliang does not fully agree with these views, because it is useless. He believes that instead of chattering and complaining, it is better to change the mindset and look at the pressure from a different perspective. For example, a study shows that a country's stress index is often positively correlated with the country's GDP, and even people's happiness and life expectancy.
According to this research report, when a country is under certain pressure, the life of its citizens will be better; Conversely, countries with little stress, such as Venezuela and Somalia, have more corruption, poverty, hunger, and violence, as well as higher feelings of unhappiness, shame, and anger that come with it.
Analyzing the reasons behind it, this is because stress can also be good and bad. Good stress is the pressure within our ability to control, which can urge us to be proactive, to achieve a series of goals to get more sense of accomplishment and feel more happy; And only stress, which is far beyond our ability to control, can affect physical and mental health.
Life science studies have shown that good stress stimulates the brain to produce a chemical called neurotrophic factor, which makes people smarter, boosts the body's immunity, and increases its adaptability to the environment. People who choose to deal with stress positively can cope with problems more happily and confidently, and have a rich, healthy life.
But many people see "stress" as the opposite of happiness, and when they hear about it, they hate it. But life is like a boat on water, the more you are afraid of the wind and waves, the more you retreat, and finally lose more opportunities, you can only watch others ride the wind and waves, laugh to the end, and leave mixed feelings in your heart. So if you change your mindset, you can see the positive side of stress.
In addition to coping positively with stress, good relationships also make us happy. The Harvard Institute for Adult Development spent 80 years tracking more than 1,300 subjects and finally concluded the five rules for a happy, joyful, and long life. These rules focus on intimacy with family, friends, and spouses. Let's take a look at each of them.
Rule 1: Intimate relationships help slow down aging, protect us from the effects of unsatisfactory life, and achieve lifelong happiness.
The second rule is that those who maintain intimate relationships live happier and longer, and loneliness is as lethal to longevity as smoking or alcoholism.
Rule 3: Better education can lead to better living habits, such as quitting smoking and drinking, and eating a reasonable diet, so that we can enjoy life long and healthy lives.
The fourth law is that there is a causal relationship between strong social bonds and long-term health and happiness, which means that those who are more in harmony with family, friends, and community will have a better life.
Finally, experiences in childhood can affect the state of mind in adulthood. Those who have a happy childhood tend to choose a positive fighting mode when facing pressure, and are willing to challenge themselves in the face of difficulties; People who had a difficult childhood often had a strong sense of insecurity and chose to run away and retreat in the face of stress.
However, this does not mean that people cannot escape the shadow of childhood. Even with a difficult childhood, there is reason to be hopeful, because belated love and support can heal old wounds. We need adult intimacy to soothe the wounded children. We need love at every age, and "better late than never".