Weekly Balance Pose Tree to 3 to Tree Warrior 3 that is

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New Theory About the Purpose of Sleep and Why Its So Important to Get Sound Sleep

by Ram

Sleep by Francisco Goya

According to Ayurveda philosophy, sleep is one of three pillars that endow the body with strength, complexion, and healthy growth, which can continue through the full span of life. The Ayurvedic texts also describe the maladies that can result from poor-quality sleep, including but not limited to misery, emaciation, weakness, brain fog, memory loss, and fatigue. It is believed that good quality sleep is essential for the well-being of any individual as the body utilizes the sleep time to repair itself of damage sustained during the waking hours.

In this hypercompetitive world, many of us complain of a lack of good quality sleep. We’re a world of unhealthy sleepers. If one were to compare the world statistics of insomnia and poor quality sleep, it is interesting to note that the numbers are nearly similar throughout the world. Within the USA, 30 percent of us have trouble falling asleep (insomnia) and 50 percent can sleep but have trouble maintaining sound/quality sleep due to tension, work, stress and/or emotional upheaval. 

Nearly 10 million people in the U.S. use prescription sleep aids. Several recent studies have shown that lack of sleep or a discontinuous sleep during the night may be deleterious for the brain, and may trigger dementia and increase the risk of stroke symptoms. For more on sleep and suitable interventions, check our earlier posts on these topics including: sleep and memory by Nina Sleep, Alzheimer's Disease and Yoga and The Importance of Good Sleep and natural interventions for good sleep 5 Tips for Better Sleep. 

The type of sleep and how we are affected by it is of great interest to sleep researchers. Sleep researchers have provided a number of reasons for why we sleep. Sleep helps to maintain a healthy immune system, balance our appetites, makes us less susceptible to degenerative diseases or infections, improves memory, and enhances cognition. Recent research work points to another interesting fact about why we sleep. Published just a week ago, a pair of papers offers evidence for another theory: Ultrastructural evidence for synaptic scaling across the wake/sleep cycle and Homer1a drives homeostatic scaling-down of excitatory synapses during sleep. 

According to these researchers, sleep helps us to forget some of the things we learn each day. Learning requires new neuronal connections or neuronal branching in our brains, which help neurons to communicate with neighboring neurons quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, these new neuronal branches also store firsthand memories of impressions that we draw in each day through our five senses. However, some of this information is redundant and does not require being stored. For example, you do not need to know what clothes you wore to work on a Thursday couple of weeks ago. Similarly, the people you saw at the airport terminal is not a value for the brain. 

In the first study Ultrastructural evidence for synaptic scaling across the wake/sleep cycle scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison proposed that neuronal branches grow so wildly during the day with all our experiential learning that our neuronal circuits actually get “noisy” (in neuroscience, “noisy” refers to the constant bombardment of electrical activity in neurons that can be measured by sophisticated machines). These scientists further added that when we sleep soundly, the brain discards all the unnecessary noise and consolidates only the relevant signals. In one experiment, scientists grew neurons in a lab dish and fed the neurons with a drug that stimulates the excess noise (that is, growth of extra neuronal branches). Twenty four hours later, the neurons had pared backed some of the branches. In a follow up experiment, the scientists surveyed brain tissue slices from mice that slept soundly and compared them to tissue slices from mice that were forced to keep awake. The neuronal branches in the mice that slept were much smaller and far less “noisy” compared to neuronal branches from mice that were forced to stay awake.

The second study Homer1a drives homeostatic scaling-down of excitatory synapses during sleep, led by scientists from Johns Hopkins University, explored the same theory with a different set of experiments. In this case, the researchers created a tiny window through which they could peer into mouse brains. They added a chemical that would light up each time a new neuronal branch developed, suggesting a new learning had triggered electrical activity, resulting in a noise. 

Looking through the window, they found that the chemical lit up very few times in mice that were asleep, suggesting that the brain was discarding all the extra branches resulting in reduced noise. This suggested that sleep turned on the pruning machinery to pare back the excess neuronal branches. More importantly, this sleep-induced pruning of neurons helped in consolidating memories. Mice that were not allowed to sleep ended up with less pruning of the branches, more neuronal noise, and fuzzy memories. Interestingly, the pruning machinery was very specific; it did not prune the well-established old neuronal connections. 

To provide an analogy, I am reminded of what the computer folks always advise us when the computer starts functioning erratically. Before thinking of any expensive repairs, the first thing they do is to switch off the computer and reboot it. The reasoning is that the processor discards and clears the hard drive of all of the unnecessary and not-needed information. So the take-home message is that we do not need to harbor all the information that we encounter briefly on a day-day basis, especially the bad, unpleasant, sad, and negative events. 

Every day we encounter brief negative thoughts/experiences —when we typically experience a brief bout of anger—that do not need to be consolidated. For example, while driving you may have encountered someone who speeded wildly and overtook you without signaling, or maybe your waiter took a long time to bring the lunch order and you got delayed for your next important meeting. These situations need not be stored as it is not helpful—it is a noise that we need to erase by sleeping soundly.

If we cannot discard these negative experiences through sound sleep, these disharmonious memories can keep lurking in the brain for a long time, and create the excess noise through the numerous unwanted neuronal branches and erratic electrical activity that will have deleterious effects on the brain. 

Sleep experts are now busy trying to discover medicines that might precisely target the molecules to induce sleep, ensuring that neuronal branches get properly pruned and all the junk information is purged. However, as yogis we know what works better naturally than medicines: a good sleep. Remember, good sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing and if you are experiencing sleep problems, there is quite a price to pay.

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How to Remove Eye Floaters

Eyes floaters are composed of protein. They are often caused by complications of diabetes, carrying a child, trauma to the eye, complications connected with food allergies, or simply due towards the natural aging process.

Eye floaters are typically experienced as small dots, squiggles or maybe thread-like structures in your visual field. While floaters can be annoying, they're generally harmless.

>>> If you order Eye Floaters Treatment Now, you will huge savings when we cut our prices!

If you experience many floaters suddenly, or abrupt flashes within your vision, however, see your eye health practitioner immediately, as you may have the detached retina.

While it may exist unlikely to completely cure floaters through foods and supplements, it is potential to alleviate floater symptoms, as effectively as to prevent them.

        1. Incorporate antioxidants in your diet, such as vitamins E, C A, together with selenium, bioflavonoids, and beta carotene.

Can be challenging help prevent damage that can get lucky and the vitreous. Vitamin C especially may help strengthen the connective tissues found inside eye.

        2. Take minerals such since chromium, calcium, copper and manganese. They might help strengthen the connective tissue inside eye, improve circulation and help guard the vitreous from ultraviolet light.

Should your floaters are a complication of all forms of diabetes, chromium and manganese may help to regulate your blood sugar.

        3. Swallow a day-to-day gingko supplement. Ginkgo enhances circulation of blood, which can help to cure eye floaters.

Additionally, bilberry supplements also may help to compliment capillaries, particularly those of the attention.

        4. Try taking herbal supplements, for example horsetail, which can help repair this connective tissue, and dandelion root, which could help control blood sugar levels with regard to diabetics with eye floater complications.

        5. Talk to your eye doctor with regards to surgical options, like a vitrectomy. The vitrectomy is a process in which the vitreous fluid is slowly removed.

It is replaced with an contrived gel. This is a potentially grievous procedure, however, that could result inside blindness.

When to Transition to a Gentler Practice Part 2

by Nina

Hidden Waterfall by Brad Gibson

"At ninety-three, he could still perform difficult asanas--including variations on the headstand many younger "masters" could not. When he was ninety-five, however, he fell and broke his hip. Because of the reputation of Krishnamacharya, several leading surgeons offered to operate—but he would have none of it. Instead, he rigged up pulleys and ropes by his bed and began to experiment with new Yogic techniques for his own rehabilitation. Within two months he was able to walk, but the loss of full freedom of movement depressed him." —from Health, Healing and Beyond by T.K.V. Desikachar (about his father Krishnamacharya)

In Baxter’s post yesterday When to Transition to a Gentler Practice, he quoted a letter we received from a reader asking for advice about when to transition to a gentler asana practice. This is not the first time we’ve received such a question; in fact, this is probably the most frequent question we get here on Yoga for Healthy Aging. I suspect that most people with this question are hoping for some kind of formula from us, saying for example, if you can no longer do x, y, and z poses, it is time for your transition or most people should make the transition by age 65. But as I said to Baxter, I really feel that if you are asking the question, it’s not time yet. Because when the time comes, you will know it. Maybe you will be like Krishnamacharya, who had to change when he was 95. Or maybe you will need to transition much earlier, the way I did.

In my forties I had a rather strong, what I like to call “semi-fancy” asana practice. I took an advanced yoga class, did challenging poses like arm balances, full Lotus, advanced backbends, etc., practiced about two hours a day, and did long inversions almost every day (including a ten-minute headstand with variations and a ten minute Shoulderstand). I quite enjoyed the athleticism of my practice, and the feeling of strength and physical wellbeing it brought to me. By my fifties, however, I developed certain physical problems, probably brought on by menopause, which forced me to change my practice. Mild arthritis in my right hip meant that I could no longer do Lotus or even half Lotus and that I had to start using props in certain other poses. And two rounds of frozen shoulder (who knew you could get it more than once?) temporarily restricted my range of motion in my shoulder so that I was very limited in what I could do with my upper body, and after the frozen shoulders abated, I was never able to get my full range of motion back (though I’m still flexible in that area, compared to some).

I practiced asana throughout all these difficulties, adapting my practice as my restrictions increased and then decreased. While my shoulder was frozen, I couldn’t even do Downward-Facing Dog pose, much less Headstand, Handstand, or Upward Bow pose. So my practice was by nature very gentle. After I got better, I began to gradually ease my way back into the poses I couldn’t do with my temporary injury, and I’m still working on getting back to where I was (realizing, of course, that I may never get there).

When I was able to do Headstand again, I made a conscious decision not to do it as often or as long as I used to. I felt that it was a pose I enjoyed so much, I didn’t want to risk losing it again, and I knew that both Headstand and Shoulderstand would be pretty hard on my neck. So I decided to practice it only about twice a week and only for about 5 minutes each time, instead of the way I used to practice it. I had absolutely no scientific evidence that this was a good idea, and it was not suggested to me by any of my teachers, it was just a feeling I decided to follow. And it can’t hurt to be cautious, right? Removing the long inversions from my practice also made it shorter, so now my practice is more in the 1 1/2 hour range (and sometimes shorter, if I’m tired). As it happens, I never had to leave my regular (intermediate) yoga class. That’s partly because I know how to make modifications to my poses (or do alternatives) when there is something I can’t do. But it’s also because my teacher has been very supportive and understanding. (Once he said something about me—thank you, Donald—that I’ll never forget: “Nina never gives up!”)

The point is, my transition has been a very organic process, in which I’ve responded to signals from my body (some rather loud, others perhaps not) and made adaptations along the way. It hasn’t all been a one-way process, either. During times of difficulty, my practice was very gentle, and when I was more able, I returned to a stronger practice. And I also know, the transition process is not over yet. Who knows what the future holds. Will I be still be doing Headstand at 95 like Krishnamacharya? Or will I have to give it up much earlier?

Baxter, too, has gone through a similar process, with physical problems (including a touch of hip arthritis) prompting him to modify his practice. And that’s how I think it will turn out for most of you, dear readers. Perhaps you will have an injury or illness that forces you to change your practice, either temporarily or permanently. Or perhaps you will simply reach a point (who knows at what age?) when you can just no longer do the poses you used to be able to do or get through an entire class the way you used to, and you’ll know deep down inside that now is that time for a change. Like the future, this process is both inevitable and completely unpredictable. But it is your own body that will guide you through it.

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