Sleep

Missing Sleep May Hurt Your Memory

Body.Sleep1Lack of sleep, already considered a public health epidemic, can also lead to errors in memory, finds a new study that found participants deprived of a night’s sleep were more likely to flub the details of a simulated burglary they were shown in a series of images. “People who repeatedly get low amounts of sleep every night could be more prone in the long run to develop these forms of memory distortion,” one researcher said. “It’s not just a full night of sleep deprivation that puts them at risk.”

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Source: Michigan State University. “Missing sleep may hurt your memory.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 July 2014.

No Rest for the Bleary: Interrupted Sleep Can Be as Physically Detrimental as no Sleep at All

Body.Sleep1Interrupted sleep can be as physically detrimental as no sleep at all, researchers explain in a first of its kind study. In the study, the investigators establish a causal link between interrupted sleep patterns and compromised cognitive abilities, shortened attention spans, and negative moods. The researchers discovered that interrupted sleep is equivalent to no more than four consecutive hours of sleep.

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Source: American Friends of Tel Aviv University. “No rest for the bleary: Interrupted sleep can be as physically detrimental as no sleep at all.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 July 2014.

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Healthy Weight Loss May Bring Better Sleep, Brighter Mood

Body.WeightLoss.TipsDropping excess pounds may not only improve your physical health, it might also help you feel more awake and happy, a new study shows.

The research, presented this week at the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society in Chicago, included 390 obese women and men who were assigned to one of three programs meant to help them lose weight through diet and exercise.

One group received usual care, in which they were given printed educational materials during visits every three months with their primary care provider. The second group saw their primary care provider every three months, and also had brief meetings with lifestyle coaches. The third group met with their primary care providers and lifestyle coaches, and also received meal replacements and weight-loss medications.

Changes in the participants’ weight, amount and quality of sleep and mood were assessed after six and 24 months. The average weight loss in the usual care group was 4.4 pounds, compared with about 8 pounds in the second group and close to 15 pounds in the third group.

However, no matter which group they were in, participants who lost at least 5 percent of their weight after six months slept an average of nearly 22 minutes more each night than they had before, the study found.

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Source: MedicineNet.

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Too Little, and Too Much, Sleep Ages the Brain

Body.Sleep1Achieving quality sleep is an anti-aging essential, yet many of us fail to feel rested upon waking. Elizabeth Devore, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues evaluated associations of sleep duration at midlife and later life, and change in sleep duration over time, with memory in 15,263 participants of the Nurses’ Health Study.

The team found that women who slept five or fewer hours, or nine or more hours per day, either in midlife or later life, can cause memory declines equivalent to nearly two additional years of age. Further, the researchers noted that women whose sleep duration changed by greater than two hours per day over time had worse memory than women with no change in sleep duration. The study authors submit that: “Extreme sleep durations at midlife and later life and extreme changes in sleep duration over time appear to be associated with poor cognition in older women.”

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Source: WorldHealth.net.

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Poor Sleep Tied to Mental Decline in Older Men

Body.Sleep1Poor sleep is tied to a higher risk of mental decline in older men, according to a new study. The study included more than 2,800 men, average age 76, in six locations across the United States. Sleep data was collected from the men through a wrist device for an average of five nights, and participants underwent tests to assess their attention and executive function.

Executive function includes planning, making decisions, correcting errors, troubleshooting and abstract thinking.

The researchers found that higher levels of poor sleep quality were associated with a 40 percent to 50 percent increased risk of significant decrease in executive function, similar in degree to the effect of a five-year increase in age.

“It was the quality of sleep that predicted future cognitive decline in this study, not the quantity,” lead author Terri Blackwell, senior statistician at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, said in a journal news release.

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Source: MedicineNet.