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To sleep, perchance to dream

At this rate, and at the rapid speed with which the economy is nose-diving, a tax may just be levied on dreaming. This is the only activity that has seen increased productivity in recent times.

April 11, 2020 / 08:16 AM IST
Eat for sleep, especially the night before. Being well-rested helps your immune system work to its fullest potential. To ramp up your sleep quality before you get vaccinated, be strategic about what you eat, especially for dinner.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that eating too little fiber (fruits, veggies, whole grains, pulses, nuts, and seeds) and too much saturated fat and sugar (fatty meat, dairy products, sweets) can lead to less restorative, more disturbed sleep. In contrast, a higher fiber intake led to more time in deep, high-quality, slow wave sleep. In the study, volunteers also fell asleep faster after eating meals provided by a dietitian, compared to those who selected their own meals.

Dinner meals that meet sleep-supporting criteria include hearty lentil soup paired with a garden salad dressed with extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) vinaigrette; wild Alaskan salmon paired with EVOO sautéed broccoli and roasted fingerling potatoes; a veg-packed stir-fry with citrus and lima beans over wild rice, topped with chopped cashews; and chickpea pasta tossed with EVOO, garlic, herbs, and a generous portion of oven roasted veggies.

If you need a snack between dinner and bedtime, reach for fresh fruit and/or nuts. But to allow your food to properly digest, try to give yourself about three hours between the time you finish eating and the time you go to sleep. As for beverages, be sure to cut off caffeine at least six hours before bedtime. And curb fluid consumption in the evening so you won't have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. (Image: Moneycontrol)

Eat for sleep, especially the night before. Being well-rested helps your immune system work to its fullest potential. To ramp up your sleep quality before you get vaccinated, be strategic about what you eat, especially for dinner. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that eating too little fiber (fruits, veggies, whole grains, pulses, nuts, and seeds) and too much saturated fat and sugar (fatty meat, dairy products, sweets) can lead to less restorative, more disturbed sleep. In contrast, a higher fiber intake led to more time in deep, high-quality, slow wave sleep. In the study, volunteers also fell asleep faster after eating meals provided by a dietitian, compared to those who selected their own meals. Dinner meals that meet sleep-supporting criteria include hearty lentil soup paired with a garden salad dressed with extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) vinaigrette; wild Alaskan salmon paired with EVOO sautéed broccoli and roasted fingerling potatoes; a veg-packed stir-fry with citrus and lima beans over wild rice, topped with chopped cashews; and chickpea pasta tossed with EVOO, garlic, herbs, and a generous portion of oven roasted veggies. If you need a snack between dinner and bedtime, reach for fresh fruit and/or nuts. But to allow your food to properly digest, try to give yourself about three hours between the time you finish eating and the time you go to sleep. As for beverages, be sure to cut off caffeine at least six hours before bedtime. And curb fluid consumption in the evening so you won't have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. (Image: Moneycontrol)

Under the new coronovirus regime, the masses are reporting massive dreaming. With nowhere to go, with nothing to do and with no one to speak to, the subconscious mind has gone into a tizzy. Uncontrolled images are disco-dancing under everyone’s eyelids.

Fear and insecurity over what is happening and what will happen in the future gain fluency during sleep cycles. Also, insomnia or oversleeping lead to sleep quality itself being disturbed. Headlines lobbed at us during waking hours, the dismal statistics and the constant update of fatalities, the relentless checking and cross-checking of house and hands for germs, are bound to impact the dream factory. Far corners of our mind are in a constant race to absorb latest data. ‘Iron currency notes?’ one asks when awake; while fast asleep one has neither an iron box nor any money.

There is also Netflix. Well-enacted dramas on crime and hauntings extend their tentacles into our unconscious states. Pre-coronavirus we have bragged about binge-watching TV series now and then, groaning about hangovers, but that seems kindergarten compared to current 24/7 addiction levels. Now we totter about in a daze talking anxiously about the same plots and endings, as worried and tense as the detectives and policemen we watch. As someone who overdosed on cable TV put it, ‘Please, can I watch some Krishi Darshan?’

A necessary interaction, however minimal, with a vegetable vendor or masked banker leaves us in a hallucinatory state for ages. We are a hundred percent sure we are infected and infecting all our loved ones. When pleasantries seem beyond us even during waking hours, they are definitely dead on arrival in the land of zzzz.  Once the lights are off and we have bid goodnight to ourselves, all gloves are off; To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come… as the famous quote goes.

No wonder then that a lot of our current chats with each other are about what I dreamt and what you dreamt. Nightmares have taken centre-stage, with attempts at decoding our minds taking up our waking hours.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

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How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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In writer Jeet Thayil’s latest novel Low, there is a mention about dreams, how they give us away to the random people we reveal them to. We reek of our frankest feelings while discussing passionately the minor details of our nocturnal ramblings.

At this rate, and at the rapid speed with which the economy is nose-diving, a tax may just be levied on dreaming. This is the only activity that has seen increased productivity in recent times.

None is more alone than in his bed locked into sleep. The global epidemic of loneliness infects us completely then, at our most solo and vulnerable. Helpless in the hands of our deepest paranoia, we try to cope with the new bewildering realities of our era, twitching and grimacing in the privacy of our sleep. As some singer in an attempt to woo a dream lover once explained, ‘So I don’t have to dream alone.’

Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bangalore. Her books include The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Barefoot and Pregnant, Planet Polygamous, and the anthologies Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, Boo. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Asia Prize for her story A Dog’s Death in 2003, she is the co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.

Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bangalore. Her books include The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Barefoot and Pregnant, Planet Polygamous, and the anthologies Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, Boo. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Asia Prize for her story A Dog’s Death in 2003, she is the co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.
first published: Apr 11, 2020 08:16 am

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