How To Avoid Memory Loss From Poor Sleep

Poor sleep is not good for any aspect of health, including memory: What Would Happen If You Didn’t Sleep?

But if sleeping better isn’t an option, what can we do about it?

Well-timed exercise can mitigate it

In the short-term, at least; the research is not yet there for how sustainable this is, although given the mechanism of action, it is quite promising for that too.

In few words, this recent research showed that a single 30-minute session of moderate exercise in the evening was linked to better next-morning memory after a night of restricted sleep.

How they (Dr. Emmanuel Frimpong et al). did this is that adults were randomly assigned to four groups based on sleep duration and exercise. Participants memorized 80 face-name pairs, then either cycled moderately for 30 minutes, or rested, before sleeping either 8.5 or 4.5 hours. Brain activity during sleep was monitored, followed by a memory test the next morning.

By default, reducing sleep from 8.5 hours to 4.5 hours significantly impaired memory for newly learned information, particularly hippocampus-dependent memory that relies on sleep to become stabilized and stored long term.

However, participants who exercised before the short night performed statistically as well on the next-morning memory test as participants who received a full 8.5 hours of sleep.

Which is really quite impressive!

Notably, all groups had performed similarly immediately after learning, indicating that exercise specifically helped preserve memories during the overnight consolidation period.

You might be wondering what we meant about the mechanism of action. Based on the data, it appears to that the deciding factor was how long participants spent in slow-wave sleep, and it appears that the exercise brings this about.

Which means it seems to be very different from a band-aid solution that merely masks the problem, and thus is likely a strong improvement in brain health compared to getting poor sleep and not exercising.

You can read the paper in full, here: Slow-Wave Sleep Mediates the Compensatory Effects of Acute Moderate-Intensity Exercise on Declarative Memory Deficits in Sleep Restriction ← it might not look like it’s there in its entirety, but it is, you just need to click the PDF icon to view it

What if I’m already up far too late and don’t want to spend 30 minutes exercising?

A just question.

There is another hack available: Caffeine For Memory Loss Reversal!

But really, caffeine should also be a supplemental aid, not a “rely on this every day because I didn’t sleep well” thing.

See also: Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?

And, for that matter, How Much Does Caffeine Affect Sleep, Really? ← some very bad science was done in the 1970s; we have better science now, so it’s good to be updated about this

Want to sleep better too?

With regard to sleep, we’ve written so much about this, but here are three key articles that contain a lot of valuable information:

• Get Better Sleep: Beyond The Basics
• Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep
• Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors

…as well as pointers to other relevant articles.

Sweet dreams!