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Published on January 16th, 2014 | by Jimmy Hafrey
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Improve Your Sleep by Giving Up Cigarettes
Do you wake up in the morning and feel exhausted before your feet even hit the floor? A new study published in the FASEB Journal says that cigarettes could be to blame. Researchers discovered that smoking disrupts the body’s natural internal clock and could lead to sleep disturbances. When you don’t get enough sleep, it could lead to big problems like mood disorders, anxiety, cognitive dysfunction, and depression. The good news is that giving up the smoking habit could give you a better night’s sleep and help you to feel better on a daily basis.
During the study, researchers looked at how smoking impacted mice on both a short term and long-term basis. To begin, they split the mice into two groups. The first group was exposed only to clean air. The other group was divided and part of the mice were exposed to cigarette smoke for 3-10 days and the rest were exposed to smoke for 6 months. During the study, they monitored how active the mice were during the day and tested chemicals in the lung and brain tissue.
It’s not really surprising that the mice exposed to smoke weren’t as active as the mice breathing clean air. All of the mice exposed to smoke had a reduction in chemical SIRT1, which pertains to aging. The cigarette exposure also impacted protein BMAL1, the chemical responsible for the internal clock. A similar reaction has been documented in humans with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Even mice with a natural deficiency of SIRT1 did not have levels as low as the mice exposed to cigarette smoke. Ultimately, the results showed that cigarette smoke disturbs the natural rhythms of SIRT1 and BMAL1 which results in poor sleep cycles.
This study concludes that smoking can damage your ability to get a good night of sleep. Beyond having a smoker’s cough and losing your sense of smell, cigarettes can cause you to have trouble falling asleep at night. Scientists suggest that the solution is to use a drug to boost the SIRT1 chemical to repair the deficit from cigarette smoke exposure. However, it is much better for smokers to simply quit using cigarettes and avoid pharmaceutical interventions is possible.
We all know that cigarette smoke contains thousands of deadly carcinogens. That relaxing cig you enjoy before bed could be keeping you up at night and causing you to feel run down throughout the following day. A good solution is to switch to e-cigarettes, which eliminates the toxic smoke and still provides the satisfying hand-to-mouth action that smokers crave. Plus, you get the nicotine fix that will keep you from suffering painful withdrawals in the days and weeks after giving up your tobacco habit.
Dr. Gerald Weissmann from FASEB Journal urged smokers to give up tobacco in 2014. “If you only stick to one New Year’s resolution this year, make it quitting smoking,” he said. “Only Santa Clause has a list longer than that of the ailments caused or worsened by smoking. If you like having a good night’s sleep, then that’s just another reason to never smoke.”
While it’s not easy to quit smoking, e-cigarettes can make the transition a little easier. Give up smoking and you could finally get a good night’s sleep. Isn’t it worth it?
Published on January 16th, 2014 | by Jimmy Hafrey
0
Improve Your Sleep by Giving Up Cigarettes
Do you wake up in the morning and feel exhausted before your feet even hit the floor? A new study published in the FASEB Journal says that cigarettes could be to blame. Researchers discovered that smoking disrupts the body’s natural internal clock and could lead to sleep disturbances. When you don’t get enough sleep, it could lead to big problems like mood disorders, anxiety, cognitive dysfunction, and depression. The good news is that giving up the smoking habit could give you a better night’s sleep and help you to feel better on a daily basis.
During the study, researchers looked at how smoking impacted mice on both a short term and long-term basis. To begin, they split the mice into two groups. The first group was exposed only to clean air. The other group was divided and part of the mice were exposed to cigarette smoke for 3-10 days and the rest were exposed to smoke for 6 months. During the study, they monitored how active the mice were during the day and tested chemicals in the lung and brain tissue.
It’s not really surprising that the mice exposed to smoke weren’t as active as the mice breathing clean air. All of the mice exposed to smoke had a reduction in chemical SIRT1, which pertains to aging. The cigarette exposure also impacted protein BMAL1, the chemical responsible for the internal clock. A similar reaction has been documented in humans with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Even mice with a natural deficiency of SIRT1 did not have levels as low as the mice exposed to cigarette smoke. Ultimately, the results showed that cigarette smoke disturbs the natural rhythms of SIRT1 and BMAL1 which results in poor sleep cycles.
This study concludes that smoking can damage your ability to get a good night of sleep. Beyond having a smoker’s cough and losing your sense of smell, cigarettes can cause you to have trouble falling asleep at night. Scientists suggest that the solution is to use a drug to boost the SIRT1 chemical to repair the deficit from cigarette smoke exposure. However, it is much better for smokers to simply quit using cigarettes and avoid pharmaceutical interventions is possible.
We all know that cigarette smoke contains thousands of deadly carcinogens. That relaxing cig you enjoy before bed could be keeping you up at night and causing you to feel run down throughout the following day. A good solution is to switch to e-cigarettes, which eliminates the toxic smoke and still provides the satisfying hand-to-mouth action that smokers crave. Plus, you get the nicotine fix that will keep you from suffering painful withdrawals in the days and weeks after giving up your tobacco habit.
Dr. Gerald Weissmann from FASEB Journal urged smokers to give up tobacco in 2014. “If you only stick to one New Year’s resolution this year, make it quitting smoking,” he said. “Only Santa Clause has a list longer than that of the ailments caused or worsened by smoking. If you like having a good night’s sleep, then that’s just another reason to never smoke.”
While it’s not easy to quit smoking, e-cigarettes can make the transition a little easier. Give up smoking and you could finally get a good night’s sleep. Isn’t it worth it?
