National Culinary Review - November/December 2010

FEATURES

inactivity, links suggested by Charlotte A. Schoenborn, M.P.H., and Patricia F. Adams at the Division of Health Interview Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. (“Sleep Duration as a Correlate of Smoking, Alcohol Use, Leisure-Time Physical Inactivity, and Obesity Among Adults: United States, 2004-2006” at www.cdc.gov.)

Ethel Hammer

ALARM CLOCKWORK ORANGE Though the amount of sleep one needs varies with age, Dr. Gregory Belenky, research professor and director, Sleep and Performance Research Center, Washington State University, Spokane, Wash., says, ideally, we need eight hours of actual sleep for optimal performance. This means slightly longer time in bed, say, eight and a half hours, to account for time to fall asleep as well as nighttime awakenings.

getting a good night’s sleep seems to be a gargantuan task. According to statistics from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 50-70 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorder. Thirty-five to 40% of us either report trouble falling asleep or daytime sleepiness; and 20% of adults say they just don’t get enough sleep, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Darien, Ill.

WHO’S GOT RHYTHM? Cheswick works 15-16 hours a day. He gets up at 6 a.m., and says he gets “a solid four or five hours” each night, starting work at 9 a.m. and not stopping until midnight or 1 a.m., six days a week.

So why, if he has more time to sleep, doesn’t he?

Not enough sleep affects the entire brain, with cognitive performance suffering across the board, Belenky points out. If you sleep fewer than four hours a night, your performance will get steadily worse over time. On the other hand, if you sleep between four and seven hours, your performance will eventually stabilize at a different, and lower, level. You won’t be doing your best, but you probably won’t know it and will feel like you’re doing fine. “In the end, most people trade peak performance for more hours awake,” he says.

“Most people get less than seven hours, with the average being at or above six,” Belenky says.

WAKE-UP CALL

“A lot of chefs could suffer from sleep apnea,” Belenky says, referring to a physical condition caused by partial compression of the airways.

The amount one actually sleeps seems to divide itself by ethnicity and sex. European-American women get the most sleep; African-American males get the least.

For those suffering from sleep apnea, sleep starts and stops repeatedly, resulting in increases in heart rate, blood pressure and sleep arousal. A bed partner will hear gasping for breath and choking, and notice momentary breathing cessations.

Like Hercules cleaning out the stables and
Atlas raising the world on his shoulders,
“Three risk factors for sleep apnea are
being male, being older (40s, 50s, 60s)
and being overweight,” Belenky says.
Sound familiar?

Belenky explains that Cheswick’s inability to sleep more than four or five hours could stem from the fact that, even though he is doing the right things, around 6 a.m., nature is waking him up. Circadian rhythms, a self-contained internal hormonal clock that regulates itself on a roughly 24-hour cycle, plays a role in body temperature, performance and the ability to fall asleep, Belenky explains. It’s easiest to sleep when body temperatures are low, hard to sleep when they rise. Body temperature is lowest between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., the best time for sleep. After that, temperatures start to rise again, making sleep more difficult. Circadian rhythms also take a brief dip, lowering body temperature, in the late afternoon, around 4 p.m., making this a good time for a catnap.