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CAN SLEEP & EXERCISE IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY?

CAT CRASHED

SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS TRICKIER THAN YOU IMAGINED

&

CARDIO IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR THE MEMORY THAN WE EVER KNEW!

Ever thought that your slightly depressed state or lack of good self regulation has to do with sleep deprivation? We are such “Pathologizers” and love to label everything so it fits into a nice neat box and can be given the perfect cure–typically with meds. While I am a believer in medical management for the right problem, I also continue to see too many people not minding their sleep habits or exercise. So my challenge to you after you read this article is:

  1. Track your sleeping habits (ask your partner to help.)

  2. If you are waking too early for reasons you can’t seem to control such as melatonin issues, anxiety, too much on your mind, habitual or familial history of bad sleep patterns, then maybe it is time for a sleep study.

  3. Keep a journal for 30 days and bring it to your doc. Include your exercise habits, eating regime, etc. Observe when you had a good night’s sleep and what the day was like beforehand. Researchers say it takes 3 days to recover from a serious night of lacking sleep.

  4. Ask for a blood panel to understand what your various chemical levels are such as dopamine, serotonin, etc.

There is ALWAYS a reason and help is nearby but you will need to do the ‘due diligence’ of tracking (journal) to figure out this complex maze of antidotes.

Here are three articles for more in depth info:

1st of 3 Articles: The UK’s Independent Newspaper article hit home and corroborates the many neuroscience studies I’ve learned from at brain conferences.

“…Just one bad night’s sleep impairs the hippocampus, which is the critical region for storing new memories. This means people struggle to remember new pieces of information.There have been many studies into the effects of sleep deprivation, but we still have a lot more to learn about its effects on our minds….In trials, some participants found their brains acting significantly under par when sleep deprived.

‘There is much less activity in the frontal and parietal lobes – areas we know are crucial for decision making, problem solving and memory,’ Professor Adrian Owen, a British neuroscientist based at the Brain and Mind Institute in London, Ontario and lead author of the study, told the BBC

…In another study, participants who hadn’t had enough sleep became more angry and stressed when trying to complete a simple cognitive test that those who weren’t sleep deprived. This reaction comes down to the amygdala, the area of the brain which controls emotions. The study showed that lack of sleep leads to more emotional responses because the amygdala becomes as much as 60 per cent more active than normal. The researchers also found that sleep deprivation disrupted the connection between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex, which regulates amygdala function.

Not getting enough sleep, it seems, causes people to reach more emotionally to negative stimuli because the amygdala overreacts.”

 2nd article out of 3: The New Scientist Journal:

3rd out of 3: From the Wall St Journal (Sept. 16, 2018)



By Lisa Ward


“Scientists are discovering new connections between learning, exercise and sleep.

A new study suggests that when learning a new task, people improve the long-term retention of those skills when they exercise intensely for as little as 15 minutes immediately afterward—provided this is followed by a good night’s sleep. The study was published in March in the medical journal NeuroImage.


‘Very little research looks at the relationship between exercise, sleep and memory formation, though there is clearly a connection between the three,’ says Marc Roig, one of the March paper’s co-authors and an assistant professor at McGill University’s School of Physical and Occupational Therapy,

The findings could help speed up recovery from stroke or injury, or be used to assist anyone learning a new motor skill, the scientists involved say.

In the study, participants learned to use a joystick-like device called a dynamometer to play a videogame. Immediately afterward, half the participants rested, while the other half biked intensely for 15 minutes. For those who underwent the short bout of exercise, Dr. Roig says, the researchers observed the brain operating with increased efficiency, which may have helped them retain the skill they just learned. The study was the first to show how exercise affects the brain after motor learning.

Eight hours later, the researchers asked all of the participants to repeat the task they had learned, and again, 24 hours later. At the eight-hour mark there was no difference between the group that had exercised and the group that had rested. But 24 hours later, the skill-retention rate was about 25% better for the group that had exercised, compared with the group that had not exercised.

Past research shows that if someone learns a motor skill during the day, the motor cortex, the region of the brain associated with executing movement, is active at night during certain stages of sleep. Dr. Roig says he wants to do a follow-up study to better understand how this contributes to memory formation….”

Ms. Ward is a writer in Mendham, N.J. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

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