The Latest Health Issue in America: Sleep Deprivation.

Sleep or the lack of it has become a critical health issue among contemporary Americans. In fact, this lack of sufficient slumber is considered to be a major cause of fatal motor vehicle accidents, industrial mishaps, as well as occupational errors of assorted kinds. Falling asleep inadvertently, being lethargic during driving, and finding it hard to perform common everyday tasks due to nodding off, can very well contribute to such perilous outcomes. All those who undergo sleep insufficiency can also suffer from such chronic maladies like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer, increased mortality, diminished quality of life as well as productivity. It is estimated that a whopping 50 to 70 million American adults suffer from wakefulness/sleep disorders. All these end up in what sociologists call TATT Syndrome, an abbreviation for Tired All The Time. As a result people are turning stupid, morose, clumsy, and even not surprisingly, dead. Sleep insufficiency can prevent you from enjoying an undisturbed slumber. This means that you are unable to fall asleep, are unable to return to sleep once awoke, and often waking up at night. It can leave you irritable and exhausted, making it hard to concentrate on anything during daytime. Some common causes of sleep insufficiency are... • Beware of that nightcap! Many have a nightcap before going to bed believing that drinking makes one feel drowsy and so makes it easy for one to sleep well. However, the response of the human body to alcohol is not that easy. Experts opine that alcohol disrupts the rhythm of your sleep. At first it makes you drowsy as expected, but once the level of alcohol in your blood drops, you are awake again. So to prevent this from occurring have that nightcap at least three hours prior to bedtime. • Sleep apnea Sleep apnea remains a typical sleep disorder that troubles a lot of people. Those who suffer from this condition tend to cease breathing unexpectedly during asleep. At such brief occasions, there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the blood stream that makes the sufferer wake up suddenly, gasping for breath. This period can range from a couple of seconds to longer durations resulting in the bluing of the skin from the resultant lack of oxygen. • Narcolepsy: Narcolepsy is neurological in nature and this sleep disorder results in severe sleepiness during the day. Those who suffer from this ailment are subject to bouts of overpowering sleepiness, making them fall asleep several times during daytime. These periods of slumber can range from a few seconds, to an hour and even or more. They can even fall asleep while enjoying a meal, talking to someone, or even driving an automobile. This syndrome affects around 250,000 in the US alone. It is in fact a chronic condition that begins during the teens. The sufferers might also experience hallucinations. • Sleepwalking Sleepwalking, or somnambulism as it is known in medical circles is characterized by getting out of bed frequently, while still asleep and walking around. • Night terrors Many young children in the age group of 2 to 6 frequently suffer from the mental condition, although persons of other ages can also be affected by this fearsome sleep disorder. Common symptoms are shaking of the body while asleep, excessive sweating, as also apparent fear. Effects of sleep deprivation: • Accidents Loss of sleep can be catastrophic to public safety especially on the highways. Like driving drunk, sleepiness can critically bring down reaction time. According to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsiness is a major cause of around 100,000 automobile crashes as well as 1550 deaths linked to crashes, every year. And this problem is at its worst, among youth in their early twenties. Recent research has shown that sleep deprivation also causes on-the-job injuries and accidents. • Health problems Lack of sleep can also bring about grave health problems. Chronic sleep disorders can result in heart attack, heart disease, heart failure, hypertension, stroke, irregular heartbeat and diabetes. • Affects sex drive Sleep deprivation can adversely affect the sex drive. According to specialists both men and women when deprived of sleep tend to have lower libidos and diminished sex-drives. This is brought about by factors such as drowsiness, depleted energy, and excess tension. • Lack of sleep makes you dumb Slumber plays a decisive role in the process of learning and thinking. This sleep deprivation adversely affects our cognitive processes by various means. To begin with it weakens attention, concentration, alertness, reasoning, and the capacity to solve problems. Thus learning is considerably impaired. Secondly, certain sleep cycles help to combine memories in one’s mind at night. So unless you get sufficient sleep, you cannot recall the things you learned as well as experienced during daytime. • Lack of sleep and depression Insufficient sleep can gradually bring forth the various indications of depression. Studies reveal that those are diagnosed with anxiety or depression tends to sleep for not even six hours per night. Also, insomnia is strongly linked to depression and often the condition is an initial symptom of depression. In fact, depression and insomnia are teamed together in a vicious cycle. Loss of sleep intensifies most of the symptoms of depression which in turn makes it hard to achieve sound sleep. • Lack of sleep and forgetfulness Recent studies made by French and American scientists revealed that certain events occurring in the human brain termed ‘sharp wave ripples’ consolidate the memory. These ripples also convey information from the hippocampus region to neocortex, a location where memories of a long time nature are stored. And these sharp wave ripples arise while we are undergoing deep sleep. Thus it is clear that in order to maintain sharp memories we need a lot of sleep. • Loss of sleep and unhealthy skin If you miss a lot of sleep, your eyes turn puffy and skin sallow. Thus chronic loss of sleep can result in fine lines on your face, dark circles under your eyes as well as unhealthy looking skin. This is because sleep insufficiency causes the body to release cortisol, the stress hormone. And if it is released in large quantities it tends to break down the protein skin collagen which maintains the smoothness and elasticity of the facial skin. Loss of sleep also inhibits the release of growth hormones which can thicken the skin, strengthen the bones as also increase the mass of the muscles. This is essentially the normal process of repairing the wear and tear caused by the elements, every day. • Loss of sleep and weight gain Studies show that those who sleep less tend to become obese. This is because lack of sleep deprivation increases appetite and hunger. While the peptide gherkin excites hunger, another peptide leptin conveys satiety to your brain, thereby suppressing appetite. However, lack of sleep elevates ghrelin and suppresses leptin. What is more, sleep deprivation not only seems to promote appetite, but also arouses cravings for foods high in carbohydrates and fats. In the future, weight loss programmes might insist on sufficient sleep to begin with. • Lack of sleep can impair judgement Insufficient sleep can adversely affect the way we interpret events, thereby harming our aptitude to arrive at sound judgments. Thus, we might not evaluate situations precisely as well act on them sensibly. The one thing wrong with people who sleep less is that they feel they are adapted themselves to lack of sleep. However, this is a fallacy, for sleep depraved people fail markedly in tests of mental alertness. And the most unfortunate thing is that you are not aware of how impaired you are. • Lack of sleep and risk of death A study conducted in the UK in 2007, entitled Whitehall Second Study revealed that patterns of sleep affected the mortality rate of around 10,000 civil servants over a period of forty years. Those who cut down their sleeping hours by 7 to 5 every night, almost doubled the risk of death, especially from cardiovascular disorders. Treating sleep deprivation The ultimate treatment for lack of sleep is easy: sleep more. If you suffer from acute loss of sleep, a mere eight hours of sleep during a single night ought to do the trick. If you suffer from chronic sleep loss, you need to sleep for longer hours with extra naps during daytime to compensate. Youngsters might take a little longer to get well from extended sleep deprivation.

Vedanta Resources

The Whitewashing of Vedanta Industries In one of the article posted some time ago, ED had mentioned the MNC called Vedanta. The name itself of the company is a misnomer. The ones who had named it so do not know the meaning or complexity of the term. This company with such a vainglorious name is out to take undue advantage of many indigenous tribes such as the Niyamgiri and Dongria Kondhs in the state of Odisha in India, in the name of development and creating misery for the people by imparting “happiness” to the people – which by the way is another misnomer – according to the misinformation they are disseminating through a series of ads. No less than an organization than Amnesty International as well as a lot of human rights groups have taken exception to the activities of this monster ready to gobble up the local tribes inhabiting the hinterlands of Odisha, through their avaricious activities. In Chhattisgarh, in their Balco plant 45 workers were killed in an accident during construction. The company is under litigation for this mishap. Now Vedanta is out to whitewash its malpractices by means of clever advertisements, one of them featuring a naïve lad named Binno. Their latest endeavor in the process is to invite students of mass communication from scores of educational institutions from all over India to produce 3-minute short films to illustrate of all things Vedanta’s so-called Corporate Social Responsibility projects. What an irony? No wonder movie greats like Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag have withdrawn from the list of juries. No amount of whitewashing will improve the image of a company that is out to destroy a unique culture and a fragile environment. Mining companies are not exactly friends of mother Earth.

The Death Knell Sounds…for Mother Earth

The Arctic lies like a wounded and helpless animal waiting for her inevitable death. The protective ice cover covering the land mass is being constantly eroded by certain heinous activities from afar.

A group of hyenas is jostling around the area for the ultimate kill and dismemberment. Right now they are in no position to close in on the prey because of the frozen ice and dwindling icebergs. Their ships cannot traverse the intervening seas right now but they are patient and can wait for the prize is worth it. They can afford to bide their time. There is enough time too to sharpen their nails and canines to make the kill all the more smoother and enjoyable. None will stand in the way and if someone does God help the mariner.

The greenhouses gases are inexorably melting the polar ice. And once enough ice has been melted, the ships can plow their way to the kill. They are waiting for the ice to melt a little more and they won’t have to wait for long.

For there is liquid gold under the Arctic, there is oil. And once the icy obstruction is done away with they can go in, plunder and sell the booty in the open market and can be rich as they have never been rich in the whole of their history.

Once the oil rigs are in place with their supporting infrastructure and personnel out to make a fast buck, one can literally kiss the pristine Arctic goodbye.

And who are the villains of the piece, the hyenas closing in for the kill?

Russia, Canada, Denmark…

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Cause of Floods Around The World

If carbon emission apologists in the USA and UK argue that the ugly phenomenon is a ‘crock of shit’, here is another nail on the coffin of their cheap and vain arguments. Bob Lutz must be gloating over the fact that the recent floods in the New England, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kansas have been caused by his own particular brand of whatever ‘shit’ he might choose to call it.
In spite of the likes of the Lutzes and the Nicks of this world, the floods that have been making life a misery for millions of folk around the world are a reality. These villains of the piece can be proud of being the progenitors of such national calamities caused by the actions of infamous persons of their ilk. Jay Lawrimore, a climate analyst of repute from North Carolina states that the changing climate syndrome is caused by greenhouse gases. He opines that ‘extreme events are occurring with greater frequency and in many cases with greater intensity’. He lays the blame squarely on the excessive heat caused by increased amounts of greenhouse gases let out into the pristine air by greedy industrialists who are out to suffocate the whole of God’s creation with the horrid gases spewed out by their loathsome factories.
It is all right, if they see the writing on the wall and make an attempt – however small – to go for other kind of energies as much as they can, for ever a small drop in the volume of greenhouses gases means that much less heat in the air.
No, they keep on going down the same old route that helps them put their ill gotten money in their pockets at the expense of the world at large.

Modern Day Barbarians

Great civilizations were destroyed by barbarians. America, the seat of modern technological civilization is being consistently undermined by minions of certain vested interests interested in the unbridled use of fossil fuels to gain their avaricious ends. What happens to our environment in the process is no concern to them. Now a diabolic campaign is being conducted by the same barbarians against climatologists who warn us of the impending danger of uncontrolled carbon emissions into the already dying atmosphere.

In the last blog, post EE touched on this subject. In UK this campaign is mostly limited to verbal and written criticism. And these scientists were exonerated from all blame by a committee headed by Sir Muir Russel. But in the good old US of A, climatologists are being threatened with death following the leak of climate leak emails reported in this blog some time ago. To add fuel to this, the police refrain from taking any action against these cowardly bullies. Some scientists are even thinking of carrying hand guns to protect themselves from these criminal elements. One eminent scientist opined that such people are mentally imbalanced. He even wonders whether he should put on a bullet proof vest. He has even unlisted his address and his house is equipped with extra alarms.

Scientists and their work are the foundation of any technological civilization to protect which the greedy elements out to destroy the Earth should be stopped at all costs. The US government should take all steps to protect these scientists so that America as a nation and the world at large can continue to exist.

Climate Scientists Exonerated!

It was only recently that a group of anti-Earth activists termed as climate skeptics accused the scientists of East Anglia University, UK of manipulating as well as suppressing important climate data. Now the Independent Climate Change Email Review headed by Sir Muir Russel, a former British government official has dismissed the claims of these critics whose actions are motivated by pure greed and avariciousness. Sir Muir, after spending many months going through all the submissions of the praiseworthy scientists as well as the villains of the piece came to the happy conclusion that ‘their rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt’ which was the accusation leveled against the scientists whose only crime was revealing the real truth about the warming of the Earth. It seems that the only lapse from the part of these scientists was failing to maintain the right measure of openness.

The diabolic critics have concocted a pot-pourie of falsehoods, misunderstandings and conspiracy theories to undermine the noble efforts of the Climatic Research Unit of the university. Most of these scientists suffered untold agonies as a result of these machinations of the carbon emission apologists. Now it is only right that the exoneration should get the same publicity as the adverse propaganda so heinously set in motion by the climate skeptics. Legal measures also should be undertaken to compensate for all that mud-slinging, by taking the conspirators to court.
The whole thing began when henchmen of the climate skeptics hacked into the CRU computers. Then they went on to accuse CRU scientists of withholding temperature data from a host of weather stations and keeping secret the necessary algorithms to process such data. Sir Muir’s review found that all such allegations were unfounded. The whole dark episode was nothing but a vain effort to undermine last year’s Copenhagen summit.

Moral: Truth will ultimately prevail.