About the Sleep, the Brain, and Why our Granny gave us Milk at night
Over the years we have been provide with several tips or tricks to fall asleeps in a fast and more confortable way. Counting sheeps, thinking about sleeping, emptying our mind, or listening to boring records…
With the age, the methods may change, but the idea was the same. Counting prime numbres, thinking about the periodic table of elements, …
But, always, everywhere, people have drunk hot milk. And, aparently, it works… Why?
Well… Acording to some papers, the heat breaks some of the unions between aminoacids, causing the Tryptophan to be released. Why is this important? Or… To put it other way…
How does sleep works?
Some people would think that sleep is some kind of pasive mode of the brain. That when it’s tired, he just calm down or something. But they are terribly wrong. Sleeping is an active process. Which mean that it needs a trigger to start (and we know this because there is an specific group of neurons in the brain that, when removed, prevent the animal from sleeping, which in some days, cause the animal’s dead).
Ok… An active process… Cool… But, How does it happen? Well…
- There are some cells in the eye. They will provide the information required about the ligt. Intense, weak, null… and so on.
- Alternatively, the brain is capting *Tryptophan* from the blood, and turning it into *Serotonin*.
- This *Serotonin* will need an adition to became *acetilate-Serotonin*, but to do that, it will need some help. The enzime that will helps it, the NAT, only works in darkness, so, when the eye-cells from point 1 indicate so, it will add some acetates to the *Serotonin*, but with light (during day) it won’t work at all.
- Once that acetilate substance is formed, is quickly turned into *Melatonin*. Probably the most important molecule in chronobiology.
- Among other functions, that little fellow induces the sleep process.
Of course that was a very simpliflied way to put it. It’s a much more complex methabolic route. And there are a lot more regulators of the sleep process, as we’ll see at the end…
Nice theory you have there… But… What about the milk?
Ok. The milk. Remenber where I said that the heat released the Tryptophan? Well. The brain is a motherfucking greedy organ, and, whenever he needs something (which usually is… almost always), he will just take it. And the more there are… The more he’s taking (and so, using).
A little extra Tryptophan means a little extra Melatonin, which means more sleep/inducers, which means more and faster sleep. Voilá. Milk works!
Are you telling me that with some hot milk I’ll sleep better?
Not exactly. This is biology, not math. Here things are variables. Your body can react differently to Tryptophan absortion, in example. Also, Tryptophan is present in a lot of meals… In turkey, for example.
And of course, as I said before, there are much more factors that also afects this. One of the biggest, is body temperature. It has to go lower in order to achieve sleep. It present a feedback with the Melatonin sintesis, since elevate temperature inhibits the reactions, while lower temperatures, induce it, and, on the other hand, Melatonin lower temperature, while being awake tends to raise it. And… This is when shit gets real, so I’ll just stop here. Avoid spicy food or too much blankets and you’ll have this cover.
Good sleeps! ;D