Below are a few of the best links I’ve come across over the last few months on how sleep affects our memory and brain health. I hope you find them as informative and useful as I did.
Below are the links with article summaries:
When Sleep Suffers, So Does Decisiveness – A recent study, which included 49 U.S. military cadets, looked at how sleep deprivation affected thinking abilities which rely heavily on instantaneous, gut-feeling decisions. They found that even moderate sleep deprivation can cause an immediate loss of these abilities.
Lack of sleep harms brain health – Another great link with respect to the importance of getting adequate sleep for maintaining optimum brain health and fitness.
Why ‘Sleeping on It’ Helps – A recent study concluded that for certain kinds of decisions – those that are complex and where you have some expertise – “sleeping on it” may be more helpful than spending minutes or hours of conscious thought on it. The brain makes good unconscious decisions, when we let it.
Rule #7 Sleep well, think well – Online link to useful information on the importance of sleep with respect to brain health and fitness found in the book “Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
Sleep & Nap – An excellent post detailing 14 great things we can do to help preserve, protect and enhance our gray matter. Number 5 deals specifically with sleep.
Healthy habits to improve memory – Getting enough sleep one of several healthy habits we can have in order to maintain and improve our memory.
Sleep Now, Remember Later – An excellent article which details how sleep affects our memory. Want a good memory, get enough sleep!
No sleep means no new brain cells – Wow.. A study suggests that missing out on sleep may cause the brain actually to stop producing new cells.
Have a Poor Memory? Then Try Sleeping On It – In humans, one particular study looked at memory recall with and without sleep. The study found that people who slept after learning the information performed best, successfully recalling more words than those who had not had sleep prior to being tested.
So there you have it.. A great excuse to go take a nap!
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Great post, thanks for sharing this information seems lack of sleep is a growing trend now days. I read where just a 30 min nap can improve your whole afternoon when it comes to being more alert.
.-= Dan Johnson´s last blog ..Vita Mark is The Name of My Primary Company =-.
Very good post, ‘power napping’ is a great way to keep alert but… it has implications on sleep at night.
Great resources – many people underestimate the value of getting enough sleep. This is especially difficult in our rushed lifestyles.
Man I must need more sleep, working the night shift is rough on your body.
Lack of sleep used to be a real problem for me, as I was a long distance lorry driver. I ended up with very bad depression but after packing the job in and being able to sleep at normal hours the depression went.
I often take naps, and I have found, that if you are doing a long car journey, stopping at every 1 or 2 hours and just taking a nap does the trick.
Good post – I liked it
This information is useful for all
Thanks for the resources – What is one does exercises for recovery and renewal – like regular meditation, feldenkrias, chi kung, self hypnosis e.t.c Could this counteract the side effects of not getting enough sleep, say 6 hours of sleep per day?
I would often try to force myself to sleep longer but couldn’t. My body only required about five to six hours of sleep. Then I started to detox my body through cleansing. I noticed that my body was more relaxed, I had a better immune system, and I could sleep much longer. Releasing toxins from my body allowed me to do this. Just food for thought.
So sleeping doesn’t just make me feel better? In all seriousness, sleep is clearly one of the essentials of life, and getting enough of it is extremely important. Your post just does a nice job of stating all the reasons very concisely. Thanks.
Great thanks for these wonderful links. I have a habit of sleeping a lot and wondering if this is affectinng my brain or not. Thanks again as I will be able to learn about these things now without much difficulty.
Another tip for getting a better night’s sleep is not using a computer late at night. Every time I stay up late on the computer I either have trouble falling asleep or don’t get that great of a sleep and wake up a bit groggy.
This seems like a foolish tip, but it works and I’ve read it elsewhere that using a computer and staring into a monitor late at night adversely affects sleep.
If you don’t get a good sleep then your brain suffers a lot. We really need our sleep and not having enough of it could really hurt our memory as we get old. We need to understand and learn how to improve the memory right now!
These are great articles indeed! There are just so many advantages of sleeping, and people tend to forget that proper sleep can solve many persistent health problems such as depression, obesity and all sorts of aches and pains. Sleeping well boosts our immune system, which allow our body to fight off most problems itself.