I dont sleep quotes11/22/2023 “By restoring sleep, it might be possible to improve memory in older people.”įor younger people, especially students, Stickgold offers additional advice. “While we have limited medical treatments for memory impairment in aging, sleep actually is a potentially treatable target,” Walker says. The researchers are now exploring options for enhancing deep stages of sleep in this older age group. Older adults had a harder time remembering things the next day, and memory impairment was linked to reductions in deep sleep. A study by Walker and colleagues found that adults older than 60 had a 70% loss of deep sleep compared to young adults ages 18 to 25. Unfortunately, the deep memory-strengthening stages of sleep start to decline in our late 30s. It’s well known that sleep patterns tend to change as we age. REM sleep also helps you process emotional memories, which can reduce the intensity of emotions. That’s why a full night of sleep may help with problem-solving. After that, REM-the most active stage of sleep-seems to play a role in linking together related memories, sometimes in unexpected ways. Memories seem to become more stable in the brain during the deep stages of sleep. “During a night of sleep, some memories are strengthened.” Research has shown that memories of certain procedures, like playing a melody on a piano, can actually improve while you sleep. Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School.īut when you doze off, “sleep seems to be a privileged time when the brain goes back through recent memories and decides both what to keep and what not to keep,” Stickgold explains. “When we first form memories, they’re in a very raw and fragile form,” says sleep expert Dr. You accumulate many memories, moment by moment, while you’re awake. Lack of sleep affects a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is key for making new memories. “You can’t pull an all-nighter and still learn effectively,” Walker says. If you haven’t slept, your ability to learn new things could drop by up to 40%. The non-REM stages of sleep seem to prime the brain for good learning the next day. The cycles repeat about every 90 minutes. While you snooze, your brain cycles through different phases of sleep, including light sleep, deep sleep, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when dreaming often occurs. “And then, sleep after learning is essential to help save and cement that new information into the architecture of the brain, meaning that you’re less likely to forget it.” Matthew Walker, a sleep scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “We’ve learned that sleep before learning helps prepare your brain for initial formation of memories,” says Dr. Their findings might eventually lead to new approaches to help students learn or help older people hold onto memories as they age. What happens to memories in your brain while you sleep? And how does lack of sleep affect your ability to learn and remember? NIH-funded scientists have been gathering clues about the complex relationship between sleep and memory. You might even come up with creative new ideas while you slumber. It also helps to link new memories to earlier ones. That’s because sleeping helps strengthen memories you’ve formed throughout the day. When you learn something new, the best way to remember it is to sleep on it.
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