Toxic Brain Waste Management

The brain creates a tremendous amount of toxic waste through normal daily thought processes. A key finding on MRI scans of Alzheimer’s patients is the presence of altered proteins in the memory areas of the brain responsible for short them storage. There’s no cure for Alzheimer's disease, which makes prevention all the more important, and sleeping well appears to be an important part of prevention.

 Studies published in 2012 and 2013 revealed that your brain actually has a unique method of removing toxic waste during deep delta sleep patterns This waste-removal system has been dubbed the glymphatic system and operates in a way that is similar to your body's lymphatic system, which is responsible for eliminating cellular waste products.

However, the lymphatic system does not include your brain. The reason for this is that your brain is a closed system that is protected by the blood-brain barrier to control what can go through and what cannot. The glymphatic system gets into your brain by "piggybacking" on the blood vessels in your brain. (The "g" in glymphatic is a nod to "glial cells"—the brain cells that manage this system.)

By pumping cerebral spinal fluid through your brain's tissues, the glymphatic system flushes the waste from your brain back into your body's circulatory system. From there, the waste eventually reaches your liver, where it's ultimately eliminated.

The most important fact is that this system ramps up its activity during sleep, thereby allowing your brain to clear out toxins, including harmful proteins called amyloid-beta that create the buildup that has been linked to Alzheimer's.

During sleep, the glymphatic system becomes 10 times more active than during wakefulness. Simultaneously, your brain cells shrink by about 60 percent, allowing for greater efficiency of waste removal.

During the day, the constant brain activity causes your brain cells to swell in size until they take up just over 85 percent of your brain's volume, thereby disallowing effective waste removal during wakefulness.

More recently, researchers discovered that the blood-brain barrier naturally tends to become more permeable with age, allowing more toxins to enter. This combined with the reduced efficiency of the glymphatic system shows that damage in both your brain and blood-brain barrier can start to accumulate at an increased pace. This deterioration is thought to play a significant role in the development of Alzheimer's.

Better Brain Tip

·        Prepare your brain for better sleep with the Walk-Breath-Twist (WBT)        routine at the end of your workday

·        See video for the 3 simple steps to WBT routine