Growing up, my mother never really enforced too many rules; my two older brothers and I were good kids. Mom worked all day, so chasing after little ones in the middle of the night would take too much energy. We went to bed when we were pooped. The logic was that if we stayed up all night and were exhausted for school in the morning, we would have to get through the day tired and hopefully learn our lesson. Of course, that turned out to be wishful thinking. Today, one brother sleeps half the day away at different time schedules each day. The other has working shifts that constantly change to give him little sleep, making him constantly grump. I am nocturnal, wanting to sleep whenever the sun wakes. Often I sleep very little during the week and sleep in all day on the weekend. With each of us thriving on coffee to continue about our day, you can imagine our health is not the best. Sadly, though, we’ve gotten use to this to some degree, despite not enjoying the results. However, one issue all three of us have complained about for years was our poor memory and attention spans. In fact, now that I think about it, my mother, who stays up all night worrying about the next bill or how she’s going to finish her filing tomorrow, never gets enough sleep. She too has complained about having a horrible memory. Heck, my 90-year-old Grandmother reminds us of events! So what’s going on?
I’ve known sleep is important to recharge your batteries and help you be more attentive when awake, but why has our memory gotten so awful over the years? It’s actually kind of scary to think about. Telling stories is so difficult anymore since we can’t usually recall small details of what happened even an hour ago. Out of curiosity, I searched the internet for any news that may enlighten me, and the results showed headliners on a lack of sleep leading to an increase in Alzheimer’s, genes changing, permanent damage to attention, hallucinations, and even the risk of heart disease.
Video from J. Howard’s article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/11/recovery-sleep-loss_n_4077471.html
In a news article, written by Jacqueline Howard (2013), she mentions the ever so famous purpose of the weekend – catching up on sleep. Do you sleep in on a Saturday after a busy, grueling week? Well stop it! She says the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism has been researching the effects of a lack of sleep, and what they found was unfortunate. As it turns out, while sleep does help us in recovering, reenergizing, and filtering out the excess crap from our brains, it does not fix all of the damage we have done on those sleepless night of worrying about a project or staying up to play videogames. Scientists took 30 healthy, normal adults and gave them a 13-days sleep trial where the first four days a normal sleep schedule of eight hours was used. Just like how we sleep less during the week, they had to wake up early the next six days, and the remaining three days, acting as the weekend period, there was ten hours of sleep… which sounds lovely, actually. The loss of sleep had decreased participants’ scores on attention tests and increased inflammation agents in the blood, but the recovery period those results did improve. The bad news is the fact that out of the whole test group, attention did not improve well. Even an hour can make a difference. If you do not get enough sleep, your stress levels could increase and immunity response could decrease. Genes are even affected, and a lot of them at that! There is also a connection with chronic diseases and the lack of sleep, meaning adults should not only aim to get around the known seven to nine hours of sleep, but adults, and those with chronic diseases especially, should aim to keep a normal sleep schedule even on the weekend. There is still some good news, though! Naps are a good idea; the payback of sleep is not necessarily a bad thing, but to get too much of it and overwork the tradeoff between your damaging lack of sleep and the recovery period, it is like stretching a rubber band over time. It looks to return to its original length, but little by little, you will stretch it out so badly it will snap. All in all, they suggest you keep a regular sleeping schedule, no matter the day, because it can actually aid in falling asleep and getting up feeling refreshed and keeps you on a normal time schedule without feeling like your feet are dragging (Howard, 2013).
Alright, so how does sleep affect your long-term memory, then? As a nocturnal, videogame slash caffeine addict, this may be important to know. Upon my search, I found a peer-reviewed journal article discussing the importance sleep has on our brains processing system. In Born and Wilhelm’s (2012) paper, they start with discussing how we can learn new things without forcing what we already learned out the other ear. There exists a standard two-way model on memory where information we take in while awake has some junk in it we don’t need. The pool of information, while sleeping, goes to the declarative memory system. What we have are two memory storage banks – one for short-term memory in the Hippocampus and one for long-term memory in the Neocortex. The information we take in during the day must be consolidated or added to our previous knowledge to aid in learning. During our awake period, our brains are encoding that information, so to prevent an interference of encoding, processing, and storing that information, we sleep. During sleep, system consolidation takes place where reactivation of our memories help to distribute that information we’ve recently taken in to distribute to our long-term memory. To do this, during our slow-wave sleep, the body takes the new information, sends it to our Hippocampus for temporary storage, where the information that was actually more weakly coded but held emotional coding is more likely to be sent on the Neocortex for long-term storage. What happens during this process is determined by the level reactivation. In the Neocortical, slow oscillations pass the info to the Thalamo-Cortical Spindles. Then reaching the Hippocampal ripples, reactivation occurs and undergoes this process numerous times. The more it does, the better it is stored in the Neocortex, which also strengthens the long-term memory (Born, & Wilhelm, 2012).
So we need a regular sleep schedule at seven to nine hours a day. Short naps are safe, but too much sleep could lead to health problems and diminishing attention over time. Also, our slow-wave sleep is important to maintain in order to code, process, and store newly incorporated information into our long-term memory banks, as well as exercise our ability to remember. With that in mind, I guess that explains my crappy memory. I’m guessing my poor sleeping habits, where I take hours to fall asleep and hate waking up, means I have little time to spend in NREM and little time in REM as well. This may prevent my brain from getting the rest it needs to have the required attention to take in those experiences for later processing, and it also might be disrupting the needed time for the actual process itself. If that intake of information is not being exercised through processes, my memory is going to suck all around. I guess it’s obvious I should just start going to sleep on a regular schedule for health all sorts of benefits, and I should stop sleeping in on weekends as well. Yet, somehow it has become addicting to sleep the hours I do. I have tried to set an alarm for when I should go to bed and all that happens is I lie there, feeling depressed and unable to turn my brain off. Does anyone have any suggestions for this other than counting sheep? Counting at night doesn’t help in the slightest…
References
Born, J., & Wilhelm, I. (2012). System consolidation of memory during sleep. Psychological Research 76(2), 192-203. doi:10.1007/500426-011-0335-6
Howard, J. (2013, October 11). Recovery sleep may reverse some, but not all, effects of sleep loss, snooze studies suggest. The Third Metric. Retrieved from http://huffingtonpost.com
Kate 
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Just goes to show sleep is very important. There many things can disrupt sleep. Eating too much food before you lay down can cause stomach uneasiness. This makes it much harder to fall asleep. In addition consumption of caffeine and sugary drinks can furthermore make it problematic to sleep for the reason that they have stimulating effects. Alcohol ought to be shunned right before going to bed. However alcohol can make you feel drowsy directly after you consume it, but you might wake up later in the night.
Haha which is ironic considering so many people feel the need for a late night snack. I’m no exception to this no-no. So where does the idea of having a glass of warm milk before bed come in, though? Is there just nothing in the drink that causes over-activity or is it the warmth bringing some sort of comfort? Our bodies are the pickiest things, I swear…
Hi my name is Lauren and I am a chronic bad sleeper, the first step is admitting it right? Growing up, my mother put me to bed strictly at 9pm, but as high school and college age approached I forgot what sleep is.
I too have a horrible memory. My mother always blames my lack of memory on one of my 4 concussion (which Im sure do not help), but maybe the reason I can not find my keys in the morning (or afternoon).
After reading how sleep affects your long term memory I see the error in my ways. Can memory be restored bit by bit if you continue to get the suggested amount of sleep? Well I guess there is only one way to find out. Night!
Oh my goodness, you poor thing. I’m getting you a helmet and some bubble-wrap for Christmas! Well from what I read, lack of sleep does cause permanent damage, but I think you can restore your ability to process and code by getting onto a regular sleep schedule. You exercise your long-term memory storage, improving its ability to take in information and reactivate for more storage. So technically yes, but surely there is only so much we can do to aid it. I actually found this article a while ago on concussions in sports and how we can prevent extreme damage to the players by giving them a longer resting period. It’s believed that brain cells can actually be changed, but it is temporary if they can heal. Here’s the article: http://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-disorders/injury/articles/2012/hard-knocks-the-science-of-concussions/
Stay safe, missy! o get some sleep. (Harr harr!)
I too have problems with keeping a regular sleeping cycle. It seems one week I don’t get enough sleep, then the following week I sleep entirely too much! I took Dr. Sadigh’s Mind-Body Medicine course over the summer, and he had us do somatic relaxation techniques in class. It was very relaxing (I actually fell asleep twice!). The somatic relaxation helped me focus on my breathing while peacefully lying on my back, and paying attention to the rhythmic beating of my heart beat as my hand lie on my chest. It was very helpful to relax my brain and may help you calm your brain down when you cannot sleep. Another good way to quiet your brain, I feel, is to meditate. It forces me to think of the “here and now”. I just focus on the little things and whenever I notice my mind start to wander, I bring it back by focusing on my heart beat. Hopefully this will help you get a good night’s sleep!
Thank you! Dr. Sadigh is a miracle worker, isn’t he? I always wanted to try meditating, but without someone to give me a guide through it, I get off track so easily. Do they have meditation groups? I also tend to wheeze a lot (asthma) which makes silence very hard. I would love to try this though; thank you very much! And I hope you get many a good night’s sleep. 🙂
I totally love to sleep in and I wish I could do it more often. My work schedule some times does not allow me to go to sleep at the same time every day. On Sundays I work from 7 o’ clock in the morning to 9 o’ clock at night, and then I do not get home till about 10:30 P.M and have to wake up again the next morning at 5 A.M. I am so tired and that tiredness gets worse till Wednesday, which is my last day of work for the week. Unfortunately, I do not sleep in on my days off because I have to get up with my puppy at 7:30 A.M.
I have always had trouble sleeping and it takes me forever to fall asleep most days. I have used the same trick since I was little. First I have to have to have my TV on, I know that is a big no no, however I am scared of the dark. Second I get into a comfortable position that does not allow me to see the TV. Lastly, I distract myself by thinking about scenes from movies and TV shows that I like. This has always worked for me because it takes my mind of all the junk that happens through out the day.
D: That does not sound like a fun sleep schedule or work schedule. At least you wake up on your days off to an adorable puppy, though. But sleeping with the TV on actually doesn’t sound bad, other than having to think about scenes for a while before falling asleep. That is the disrupting part of sleep. But I can’t talk since it takes at least an hour for me to conk out, where I imagine doing something fun or just being somewhere else. Counting breaths doesn’t work and actually disturbs me more, so everybody does have their own method or routine. Quieting the brain is not easy, even though we know we should stop thinking so much at night. Stay strong! One day you’ll get your well-deserved slumber.
I admit, I rarely ever get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep. Ever since I was young, I have always been a night owl. My siblings tended to always have normal sleeping patterns, though (go to bed early, wake up early). I am typically fine with only getting about 5-6 hours a night, but I do sleep in on the weekends when I can. Then, I would say that I get around 8-9. When I do finally get into bed, it takes me a while to get to sleep, too. I know some studies have said to turn off all electronics before going to sleep, but I have found that reading random news stories on the internet actually helps me fall asleep quicker. Also, another professor told me that if you do not fall asleep within about 30 minutes then it is better to actually get out of bed and do something instead of laying there. Then, try going to sleep again.
Haha well if that works to knock you out, then go for it! It’s better than lying in bed waiting for sleep to come to you. Although I did not know that about not sleeping for 30 minutes and doing an activity to get to sleep. What suddenly makes you tired? Would you suggest an activity with a lot of energy like exercising or something small like walking around in short distances or listening to music?
I understand where you’re coming from when you say it’s hard to set a regular time to go to sleep at night. I hate having to just lie in bed fiddling my thumbs! I also detest waking up in the morning. I used to sleep 10+ hours a night and still wake up tired in which I ended up taking naps! Since having a baby I no longer have the luxury of sleeping in EVER though I still find myself up all night even though I knew in the morning I’m going to regret it. I think in such a fast paced society we live in none of us actually get the right amount of sleep! Smart phones also don’t help when it comes to falling asleep either!
Aah, they constant thoughts of a mother! My mom said after having a child, sleep is never kind to you, even when the baby stops crying. You poor thing. When you little one is 16, bust through the door on a snow-day with an alarm or air-horn and shout “YOU’RE LATE FOR SCHOOL”! Payback. Haha, but finding sleep can be hard. As ndthomas pointed out, try doing some sort of activity after 30 minutes pass of thumb twiddling. Maybe that will help a little? Good luck and tell me how it goes!
Let me preface this comment by saying that I am not a napper or a person to stay up late. In your blog you said that napping is good, but just remember that you should only take a nap for either 20 minutes or for the whole 90-minute sleep cycle. In the beginning of the semester I noticed that I was having a very hard time falling asleep at night, and by hard time I mean I would be awake tossing and turning for hours. This had never happened to me before so I started to look at what I was doing differently in my night-time routine. The only thing that it could have been was I was looking at my phone, in the dark, before going to sleep. The bright light tricks your brain to thinking that it is day time. After I made that discovery I found that a good way to get me to sleep is to just follow a nightly routine. I get in bed and read a chapter of a book (not a text book!) and then I turn the lights out and go to sleep. Hope this helps you in your sleeping dilemma!
I remember Dr. Himmanen mentioning not looking at a light source at night, yes. Haha, technology ruins us in a fast-paced, lack of sleep world. Now that I think about it, college dorm buildings could have a lot of factors affecting our sleep. In the halls, they usually turn off the main lights to keep it kind of dark, but they never turn off bathroom lights. I tend to get up to use the bathroom now and then, and there have been many nights of stumbling in the bright bathroom, shielding my eyes. Then I don’t feel tired when I crawl back into bed. Thanks for your suggestion! Also, in the study, they mentioned a nap of about an hour, which helped as long as it wasn’t much more or less. I think everybody is different and might not follow the 20 minutes or 90 minutes. If I nap, an hour usually does do it for me, but I see your point. Thank you. Get some sleep!
Great Blog! I have a pretty good sleep schedule, going to bed around 10:30 most nights and waking between 5:30 and 6:00. I also nap frequently, however my fatigue is related to anemia. After learning about the sleep cycle in another class I have adjusted my naps to be around 20 minutes and it has made a big difference in how I feel after the nap.
I was thinking about your request for suggestions for sleep – does it help to force yourself awake in the day hours so you are tired at night. It may take a few days to regulate your internal clock, but it may work. It made me think of my kids when they were babies. When my boys were around a year old (they are now 11 and 6) they suddenly decided they were not going to sleep at night -so I did a sleep intervention. I would go in the room lay him back down and say it is night time, go to sleep. Those are the only words I would mutter to them, I then sat in the rocker in the room and made no eye contact with them, but could see them out of the corner of my eye, whenever he would stand up – I would lay him back down repeating the same thing – “it’s nighttime, time to sleep. After a few hours of that, he fell asleep and I left the room. I had to repeat this for two days, after the second day – the problem was solved. I never had a problem with them waking up and not returning to sleep. My point is I retrained them that night time wasn’t play time is was sleep time and maybe some version of that would help you. Good Luck!
Oh my gosh; I love this! That’s so funny. It’s like training the dog to salivate, thinking of food, at the sound of a bell. I wonder if this would work if I did this to myself. I have tried to force myself awake, but I tend to give in and pass out after so long, but recently with my roommate present, I am better at not really sleeping but jumping onto my bed and resting for 20 minutes, then getting back up to continue my day. It seems to help a lot with staying awake in the day, but then I’m still not tired until 3 AM. Then I get a slow shower and take another hour to fall asleep. Maybe training myself to get into bed and not touch my Walkman… As for your anemia, I’m sorry you have to deal with that. At least it sounds like you get appropriate sleep. Does it make you more tired throughout the day?
Intriguing. I also am a video game playing caffiene addict. I will typically stay up late but then I will wake up late after getting 8 hours of sleep. I suppose though that after reading this blog that it woudl explain my memory problems as well. There are times I cannot remember what I did last week let alone yesterday! I’ve always attributed it to the day’s blurring into eachother as they are all the same.
I live a very monotonous life, I work 5 days a week and go to school two days a week. There is very little variation on these days and for two nights of the week my sleep is interrupted by where I work; one of our clients requires a baby monitor so we know if he has to use the bathroom or not, and you are constantly hearing noises from his room over the montior, we also have two clients with walkers and they are getting up multiple times during the night to go to the bathroom as well. All in all those two nights of the week my sleep is not good. Combined with my sleep patterns during the rest of the week, its a small wonder my memory is going bad!
Interesting blog topic! I attended one of Dr. Sadigh’s sleep and dreams workshops once and also we’ve gone over sleep in my health psychology class. Micah always tells us that short naps multiple times throughout the day is actually more beneficial to our health than sleeping in and sleeping late. The most crucial hours for sleep are between the hours of 12 and 3 am because those are the darkest hours of the night and for some reason this actually correlates with REM activity and it seems that the body uses these hours to go through its reparative stages to help bring your body back to its best form. Also, I think the reparative effects of sleep is why doctors tell you to sleep when you’re ill so that your body has the best chance to repair itself. I do agree with what you said about sleep schedules being hard to follow, but once you get into a good rhythm your body will adapt for the better. Great blog!
Interesting blog topic! I attended one of Dr. Sadigh’s sleep and dreams workshops once and also we’ve gone over sleep in my health psychology class. Micah always tells us that short naps multiple times throughout the day is actually more beneficial to our health than sleeping in and sleeping late. The most crucial hours for sleep are between the hours of 12 and 3 am because those are the darkest hours of the night and for some reason this actually correlates with REM activity and it seems that the body uses these hours to go through its reparative stages to help bring your body back to its best form. Also, I think the reparative effects of sleep is why doctors tell you to sleep when you’re ill so that your body has the best chance to repair itself. I totally agree with you about how difficult it can be to keep a sleep schedule, but I know that once you get into a good rhythm your body will adapt for the better. Great blog!
Between work and school, it is really hard getting to get sleep. I am almost always tired, and catch up on my sleep (at least a little) on the weekend. I can definitely see a difference between the weeks where I have no sleep from tests and such and when I can get at least 6 hours a night. I thought it was interesting how you said too much sleep is bad, because over the weekend I can get up to 12 hours a night, but it feels so good if I can get that much sleep. I guess this would be a good hint to myself to get an actual schedule, although when it comes to deadlines that isn’t always realistic.
Interesting blog topic! I attended one of Dr. Sadigh’s sleep and dreaming workshops and also have gone over sleep and its restorative effects in our health psychology course. He always tells us that taking multiple short naps (40 minutes-ish) during the day actually helps your cognitive processes and keeps you sharp. He also says that sleeping late is really detrimental because your body’s most crucial reparative hours are between 12 and 3am. Those are the darkest hours of the night and for some reason are linked with your brain’s restorative stages. Also, he says that the reason doctors tell you to sleep when you have a cold or are ill is because of the kind of effects that your body undergoes to try to restore your body to a balance through sleep! I totally agree with your statement about how difficult it is to keep a sleep schedule, but I promise that once you get a good rhythm going your body will adapt for the better! May I recommend chamomile tea? It’s a cure-all for my family and helps with helping get little kiddies to sleep so maybe you can give it a try too! Great blog!
i really like how everyone can relate to your bog; it was informative and well written. i too am on a terrible sleep schedule. usually barely get any sleep on weekdays then “make up” the lost hours by sleeping all weekend. but this is flawed logic, sleep cannot be banked nor made up for in the long run. however, i find alternative sleep cycles fascinating. most are short intervals of sleep almost like naps throughout the day. my busy life during the week does not allow for such flexiblity but you can learn more here: http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/overviews/. also i really enjoy this guys website, he does all sorts of interesting personal development trials. this is his practice on how to fall asleep in thirty seconds or less, every night. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2013/07/how-to-fall-asleep-in-less-than-30-seconds/
Dude, this is my summer life. Woah. Let’s play Co-op Dead Space 3. (Even though DS2 is the best of the three.) Ahem, anyway! Yeah, I can imagine living with sort of a drone lifestyle, it would be easy to see the days blur together. Thus is the life of a gamer, but it’s worth it (not it’s not, but VIDEO GAMES). So you live a life of don’t sleep normally and play games and don’t sleep normally and work a boring job? Rough, buddy. D: I hope you find a better job that gives you downtime in the future, but I’m sure you’re a big help to clients and do a great job. In time, my friend… In time.