Your BRAIN: How Your Sleep Posture Could Prevent Future Brain Diseases

BRAIN WASTE:  The Glymphatic Pathway Cleanse

The glymphatic pathway is most efficient during sleep. It is the time your brain uses to flush out brain waste. Brain waste includes tau proteins, amyloid β and other waste chemicals that may adversely impact brain processes if they accumulate.

The research used the dynamic contrast MRI method along with kinetic modeling to quantify the CSF-ISF exchange rates. The analysis consistently showed that glymphatic transport was most efficient in the lateral position when compared to the supine or prone positions. Interestingly, the lateral sleep position is already the most popular in human and most animals. It appears as if we have adopted the lateral sleep position, which efficiently helps rid our brain of the metabolic waste products that built up while we are awake.

Could this be one of the missing links as to why sleep disturbances may accelerate memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease?

Not only is getting enough sleep necessary, but also the posture you employ is important for healthy brain development, says Dr. Helene Benveniste, Principal Investigator and a Professor at the Department of Anesthesiology and Radiology at Stony Brook University School of Medicine.

Your Future Sleep Posture

Most of the people find it difficult to record their position during sleep. However the research observed that the people who adopted the side sleeping positions were less likely to wake up in the night bothered by shoulder, neck or arm pain as compared to others who went to sleep in any other position without giving a second thought. This means we can essentially ward off many neurological disease directly linked to sleep by adjusting how we lie when we sleep. Understanding how and when the brain activates the glymphatic system and clears waste can help us figure out how to make it work efficiently.