Hydrogen water can help you "sleep well"!

Sleep is a basic physiological need for human beings; if you don’t sleep well, many physical and psychological problems will occur. "Insomnia" has become a disease of civilization that plagues many people. According to a 2017 survey by the Taiwan Sleep Medicine Society, on average, 11.3 out of every 100 people in Taiwan suffer from chronic insomnia. 

Effects of sleep deprivation on memory

Insomnia and lack of sleep not only cause reduced concentration, reduced immunity, and endocrine effects, but also have a great impact on our memory.

According to research by UC Berkeley  professor of neuroscience and psychology Matthew P. Walker and postdoctoral researcher Bryce A. Mander , reduced sleep quality will weaken the ability to store long-term memories. Deep sleep is a critical moment for human beings to convert experiences into memories. Long-term lack of deep sleep will cause memory loss. In other words, if you can improve sleep quality, you can enhance memory that declines with aging.

Link between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer's disease

The movie " Still Alice " shows the pain and struggle of Alzheimer's patients. Even a successful university professor is isolated and helpless when facing dementia. Many people want to know the causes, prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

In fact, Alzheimer’s disease is also related to sleep quality! Deep sleep is like a sewage treatment plant in the body, specifically flushing toxic substances from the body. The "protein beta-amyloid " related to Alzheimer's disease is one of the toxic substances that can be washed away by deep sleep. Long-term lack of sleep or poor sleep quality affects the function of deep sleep as a "sewage treatment plant", resulting in the accumulation of beta-amyloid , which may greatly increase the chance of Alzheimer's disease .

Therefore, if you want to have a good memory in old age and not cause trouble to yourself or others, good sleep quality is very important! 

How to measure sleep quality?

Since sleep quality is so important, how do you know if your sleep quality is "good" enough? The most commonly used method to measure sleep quality in modern society is the "Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) " proposed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in 1989. It can calculate a subject's sleep quality through several self-assessment questions. The higher the total score of the PSQI questionnaire, the worse the sleep quality. 

Experiment on hydrogen water and sleep quality

In order to understand whether hydrogen water affects sleep quality, Osaka City University in Japan conducted a four- week random blind test experiment on 26 healthy subjects with an average age of 34.4 years in 2014 . The researchers divided the subjects into two groups. Group A drank 300 mL of hydrogen water with a concentration of 0.8-1.2ppm in the morning and evening , and Group B drank 300 mL of drinking water with the same packaging at the same time . The PSQI of the subjects was calculated before and after the experiment , and it was found that the total PSQI score of the subjects in group A ( drinking hydrogen water ) dropped significantly, while the total PSQI score of the subjects in group B ( drinking water ) did not change significantly. It can be seen that the sleep quality of subjects who drink hydrogen water is significantly improved compared to subjects who drink ordinary drinking water.

In addition to PSQI , the experiment also used sympathetic nerves to measure the subjects' sleep quality. Among the autonomic nervous systems, sympathetic nerves are facilitative and parasympathetic nerves are inhibitory. To use a simpler metaphor, you can think of the sympathetic nerve as the accelerator of a car, and the parasympathetic nerve as the brake; therefore, to have good sleep quality, the sympathetic nerve needs to be weakened and the parasympathetic nerve strengthened. In this experiment at Osaka City University, the sympathetic nerve activity during sleep of the subjects in Group A ( drinking hydrogen water ) was significantly weakened after the 4- week experiment.

"Are you full?" is a common greeting among Taiwanese people; but as more and more people suffer from insomnia, "Did you sleep well yesterday?" has become a new greeting for modern people when they meet. Go to UPH to experience hydrogen breathing and enjoy hydrogen water, so that you can confidently say "I slept well yesterday!" at any time.