Brain Fog After Poor Sleep: Too Little Oxygen Or Too Much Cortisol?

Ever have one of “those” days after a night of poor sleep? Your memory doesn’t seem to be at its best and your thoughts are sluggish. It has been demonstrated that sleep deprivation strongly impairs memory and learning, but the actual mechanism causing these deficits has not been definitively identified. Now, a study from the University of California, San Diego done on persons with sleep apnea may provide some much-needed answers as to why.

The researchers checked 55 sleep apnea patients’ blood cortisol levels every two hours for 24 hours. The patients underwent sleep studies the following night and then took a battery of tests to assess cognitive function. The researchers looked to see how many times they stopped breathing, and how often their oxygen levels dropped in response to airway obstruction. Previous research has assumed that sleep-related memory problems are caused by a drop in oxygen. But this study found that it was elevated cortisol levels that best predicted cognitive dysfunction.

Prior studies have revealed adverse effects of elevated cortisol on the brain’s hippocampus. The hippocampus is a structure that resides in the temporal lobe of the brain and is intimately involved in acquiring information and consolidating that information into long-term memory. This is important because it may explain why sleep-deprived individuals frequently exhibit poor memory and concentration abilities.

We know that people who have insomnia and those who chronically get inadequate sleep because of personal lifestyle choices have elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. These people do not have sleep apnea or low nighttime oxygen levels, yet they frequently exhibit cognitive dysfunction similar to patients with sleep apnea, so the common link may be the cortisol. We know that overstimulation of the adrenal gland produces the excess cortisol and the common thread is stress, produced by either insufficient sleep, or in the case of sleep apnea, fragmented sleep. Therefore, reducing cortisol output would be the base strategy to improving sleep quality and subsequent brain function.

First, adequate attention should be paid to maintaining a proper sleep environment. Keeping the room as dark as possible, noise- and distraction-free, and typically not warmer than 69 degrees will help promote proper rest. Avoiding stimulants such as caffeine, alcohol and high sugar foods, as well as television and other bright visual stimuli, prior to bedtime will also keep the body in a more relaxed state. (However, eating a healthy snack with some protein and fats 2-3 hours before bedtime will help keep the body from going into a hypoglycemic state overnight that triggers a release of cortisol.) Finally, find a way to mentally wind down before going to bed. Clear your mind of all the issues for tomorrow that you can’t do anything about tonight (except cause yourself more stress and poor sleep!). Take a hot, relaxing shower or bath, meditate or enjoy some quality family time. Take the steps to set yourself up for lower stress and a good night’s sleep, including planning enough time to actually sleep, and see if your mental function doesn’t improve as a result.

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski

Stress Can Make You Sick!

Stress often starts in your head with a worry or a fear, but those feelings of anxiety, and perhaps even panic, don’t stay there. When you feel stressed, your body ramps up production of the stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine.

This triggers the start of the stress response, and, like a snowball rolling down a mountain, it gains traction and speed until you’re ready for the proverbial attack.

Adrenaline, for instance, increases your heart rate, causing your heart to beat faster and ultimately raising blood pressure. Cortisol can interfere with the function of the inner lining of your blood vessels, triggering plaque buildup in your arteries, and increasing your risk of heart disease and stroke.

Meanwhile, you brain communicates with your gut, sending the news that you’re stressed, and your gut responds in suit, altering what it would normally be doing so your body can collectively work to fight off this imminent stressor (whether it’s really an imminent stressor or not).

This stress response can be quite beneficial if you need to run from a predator, or even quickly cram for a big exam. Things get messy, however, when you feel stressed all or most of the time.

While an occasional stress response is normal and even healthy, ongoing, constant stress is not. On the contrary, it’s the recipe for sickness, from chronic diseases to acute infections.

Your Gut and Your Brain Are in Constant Communication

One reason why your mental stress can be detrimental to your gut is because your gut and your brain are in regular communication.

In addition to the brain in your head, embedded in the wall of your gut is your enteric nervous system (ENS), which works both independently of and in conjunction with the brain in your head.

This communication between your "two brains" runs both ways, and is the pathway for how foods affect your mood or why anxiety can make you sick to your stomach, for instance.

Jane Foster, PhD, an associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at McMaster University, described to Medicine Net the multiple ways your gut microbes communicate with your brain – and the role that stress can play.

“…Gut bacteria can alter how the immune system works, which can affect the brain. The gut bacteria are involved in digestion, too, and the substances they make when they break down food can affect the brain.

And under certain conditions, such as stress or infection, potentially disease-causing gut bacteria, or bad bugs, can leak through the bowel wall and enter the bloodstream, enabling them and the chemicals they make to talk with the brain through cells in blood vessel walls.

Bacteria could also communicate directly with cells in certain regions of the brain, including those located near areas involved in stress and mood …”

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski 

Source: How Stress Makes You Sick

December 17, 2015   Mercola.com