The science of sleep and neuroscience has show us some pretty amazing things the last years. One of those newly discovered facts that we have been waiting for is how the brain detoxes. You see, there is no lymphatic system in the brain! It stays on the outside of the scull (why it is recommended you massage it daily). Accordingly we were taught that the brain didn’t detox the waste we produce by just living, and by voluntarily putting some extra toxic stuff in us.
Only now we know that the brain can detox and clear away waste from the brain too, not through the lymphatic system as other organs do, but through the blood vessals! And it only happens when we sleep or meditate. This TED-talk by Jeff Iliff, explains how fabulous our biology is. Sleep is detoxing, don’t mess it up!
I can only bow! Once again we are oblivious to the marvelous intelligence of our nature. How could we ever think we know better than the biological evolution of 13.7 billion years? Do we ever learn? When scientists started seeing the body as a machine culminating about 100 years ago, sleep and a healthy living became something for wimps, as Edison expressed; “Sleep is a waste of time!” Thats one reason why the macho culture is not very healthy (more about this in other blogs)
Many doctors in all parts of the world still treat us as if we were machines that can be fixed like you fix a car with some spare parts, but it is a convention and a facade. Most medical professionals and scientists I talk to in private know very well that there is more to us than our science can prove, but they can’t express it. This devastating way of seeing our bodies, makes us trust experts more than ourselves. We stopped respecting our own signals, like our sleep patterns, our hunger signals, our feelings, etc., and today’s generation pays the bill with disease.
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