In his recent TED Talk, sleep scientist Dan Gartenberg brought attention to the fact that as technology has improved so has the capability for people to work longer more productive work shifts. Gartenberg argues that this push for more productivity has come at the expense of less efficient sleep cycles, as more and more people have disrupted their naturally occurring circadian rhythms. In fact, Americans on average are sleeping one hour less per night than they were in the 1940’s. While studies show the importance of sleep quantity, there are new studies showing that sleep quality is of great importance, too.
According to Gartenberg, poor sleep and sleep apnea correlate with diseases like Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes. It also leads to riskier behavior and lessens the capacity for empathy of others. He mentions that deep sleep, which is tracked using Delta brain waves, has been shown to be the most regenerative kind of sleep. Without deep sleep, studies show a severe decrease in learning capacity, long-term memory formation, personality development and cell recovery. It’s also the case that as humans age, there is a decrease in deep sleep Delta brain waves. As Gartenberg suggests, these waves are essentially a marker of a person’s biological youth. A lab in Germany recently discovered that certain sounds can increase Delta brain waves, causing deeper, more efficient sleep cycles. Gartenberg and other researchers are now developing deep sleep stimulating devices that could be worn during sleep.
