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“Brain washing happens when you sleep – so get enough sleep”

The world tends to chaos – so every now and again, to keep moving forward, you need to take a moment to CLEAN UP. Your brain NEEDS clean up time too.

Everyone knows, the world tends to chaos – so every now and again, to keep moving forward, you need to take a moment to CLEAN UP.  But clean ups can be a little inconvenient.

So our preference is for clean ups to happen in the background, which is why big corporates and big cities clean up, after hours.

The business world NEEDS a night shift

The janitorial staff, that arrive on the scene, when all the suits & ties have gone home for the day, are not usually considered KEY to producing mega profits.

All they do is CLEAN UP.

The jobs the boots and overall brigade do, seem inconsequencial. But when they stop……………….. you do notice, maybe not initially.

But when the crumpled up draft of your BIG PROPOSAL pops out of the overfull dustbin or you catch a whiff of Monday’s leftover tuna sandwich, the importance of the clean up crew becomes apparent.

The business world needs a little down time, to clean up, so the bottom line thrives.

So does your brain….

Meet the clean up crew

The brain’s clean up crew utilizes a series of pipes, know as the glympathic system, to flush out and drain away the dirt & grime, that has built up in the brain.

The cells doing the heavy lifting in the brain’s glymphatic system, are the glia cells, not the neurons. These glia cells form the network of pipes, parallel to the blood vessels that the cleaning fluid flows through. By swelling and contracting, the glia cells push the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) around these brain pipes, ensuring it washes through all the nooks and crannies, carrying away debris.

Clean up happens when your lights are out

The glymphatic clean up system only fires up when the brain is off line.

This is what researchers from National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), discovered. To see the glymphatic system in action – the research team injected dye into the CSF of mice and watched it move, with the help of two-photon microscopy.

When the team tracked dye movements in mice that were unconscious, either asleep or anesthetized – the dye whizzed around the brain. But when the animals are conscious i.e. awake, the dye hardly moved at all.

Just like the janitorial staff of big cities and big corporates, the brain’s clean up crew works the night shift. When the movers and shakers, the neurons, have retired for the night and the last memories of the day have been transferred to long term storage, the brain glia cells clean up the mess they have created.

Dustbins are emptied and the floors are buffed. So everything is perfect for the next day’s activities.

Brain fog

You know what you’re looking for is in your brain, somewhere, you just can’t seem to find it. Maybe it is buried under a layer of dirt ?

Accumulated dirt that has arisen because your janitorial staff, never had an opportunity to come on duty and mop up, because you were too busy or too distracted, to take your brain OFF LINE. This research suggests, your clean ups system needs the suits & ties, the neurons, to be out of the picture.

Getting enough sleep is imperative for BRAIN WASHING. Make it a priority.

PS. Long term brain health probably also depends on the clean up crew !

Further reading

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