How does lack of sleep affect memory?

The quality and quantity of hours of sleep is a fundamental ingredient for physical and mental health. There are several investigations that support the harmful consequences that little rest brings, both emotionally and cognitively. It can be affirmed that little sleep worsens the quality of life of people since it interferes with social, loving, work and academic relationships.

It is important to clarify that lack of sleep, the vast majority of times, is a consequence rather than a pathology in itself. Stress, all the worries of daily life and physical pain lead to insomnia due to the state of alert in which the body is. Poor sleep can also be a symptom of depression or anxiety. There may be several causes, but what all the studies do conclude is that it significantly affects the functioning of our brain.

As we have discussed, lack of sleep affects various areas of a person's life. However, the aspect that has been studied the most is that of learning and memory. The results are unequivocal:

the less and worse one sleeps, the less is the brain's ability to form and retain learning and memories. Therefore, in today's article, we will focus on the effects of a few hours of rest on cognitive performance. Stay to discover what happens in your brain when you suffer from insomnia and some recommendations to try to alleviate the situation.

• We recommend you read: "Insomnia due to stress: what are its symptoms and how to fight it"

How does lack of sleep affect memory?

If you have gone through a time where sleeping more than 3 or 4 hours seemed like an unattainable luxury, you will have realized the importance of resting well to feel better both physically and mentally. When we sleep poorly and little, day to day becomes heavier, everything costs triple, we are moody, clumsy, it is difficult for us to concentrate and we can even detect a lack of memory.

In this regard, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports revealed that restricting sleep to 4 hours in a single night makes it difficult to acquire new memories the next day. What's more, halving the time you sleep at night, even for just one night, negatively affects the formation of new memories. This occurs because during the REM phase of sleep, the brain processes the information captured during the day and helps to consolidate and store it properly. If you don't fall asleep and therefore you don't reach that phase, that's when the brain gaps begin. Fortunately, these authors discovered that sleeping between 7 and 8 hours could reverse these effects and recover the weakest memories.

There is an interesting study where they separated the participants into two groups. One of the groups was able to rest adequately and, on the contrary, the other group stayed up all night. The next day, they had to perform a series of memory-related tasks and interestingly, it was discovered that when performing one of the tasks, more Specifically, when memorizing a group of images, sleep-deprived participants showed less activity in the hippocampus compared with participants who had been sleep-deprived. rested. This shows that the lack of a single night of sleep creates a deficiency in the hippocampus and therefore, it is not surprising that it is difficult to store new memories.

Since we are analyzing the relationship between memory and lack of sleep, It is interesting to mention the research carried out on the consequences of little rest and Alzheimer's. We are talking about a study where 100 people participated and with the objective of measuring the quantity and quality of sleep of the participants, the Researchers placed a device on the individuals and in turn, asked them to write a sleep diary and respond to questionnaires. The results are alarming. After two weeks of study, they discovered that those people who had woken up five or more times each hour during the night were more likely to have amyloid plaques than those who had slept properly. keep going.

To be understood, amyloid plaques are the result of the accumulation of a characteristic protein of people with the disease. Alzheimer's disease that basically prevents a correct connection between neurons and therefore gradually causes their degeneration. However, researchers cannot state exactly whether lack of sleep leads to the formation of amyloid plaques or vice versa, and longitudinal studies are needed for this.

The importance of good rest to improve memory is portrayed. Thus, Therapeutic interventions that restore sleep are beginning to be used in order to offer preventive benefits to reduce the risk of cognitive decline. both in healthy people and those affected by a neurodegenerative disease.

Many times, such therapeutic interventions require medication to rebalance sleep cycles. Most of the time it is difficult to achieve it naturally, therefore, the best strategy is start with a dose of medication and once the brain learns to sleep, gradually decrease it gradual.

Recommendations to combat lack of sleep

To recover the sleep routine and improve cognitive performance and mood, there are certain suggestions that can be followed. Here are some simple guidelines:

• avoid naps: Even if you feel tired from not having slept at night, try as hard as you can to avoid naps as this helps to fall asleep more easily at night and also sleep will be more repairman.

• Goodbye to alcohol and coffee: Energy drinks, coffee or alcohol are enemies of sleep. Everything that is stimulating for the body should be set aside if the goal is to achieve quality sleep.

• move the body: Performing physical exercise makes the body need to rest at night and therefore, it is much easier to get there. Of course, sports should not be practiced 3 hours before going to bed.

• Use of electronic devices: It is important to limit the use of mobile phones, tablets or laptops. It is known that light from screens inhibits the action of the hormone melatonin, which is responsible for preparing to sleep.

• suitable environment: Having a comfortable mattress, an adequate temperature (between 18ºC and 20ºC according to experts), no noise and a lot of darkness are key to achieving a restful sleep. In addition, it is advisable to use the room only for sleeping so that the brain associates the space with resting time.