Mr. Sandman—give me a solid seven
You’re in the grocery store right now, but it looks like you’ll have to make a second trip back.
Forgot your list, and can’t remember those five things you absolutely had to have. It was only last night that you foraged through the refrigerator and jotted them down. On the way out the door, your spouse said, “Honey, don’t forget to pick up X, Y and Z, okay?” You promise not to forget, but you can only recall Y. What in the world were those other two?
Even without the list, you would have had much better powers of recall—if only you had slept last night.
And for a healthy memory, not just any sleep will d You need at least seven full hours’ worth.
I know, you’ve heard me tell you about healthy sleep habits before. But your memory is at stake, and if you think about it—that directly impacts your quality of life.
A new study shows that sleep can help support your powers of recall of recently learned information—such as that grocery list!
A group of students participated in this study in which they had to memorize a list of 20-paired words. In one group, the list was memorized at 9 a.m., but before they were tested at 9 p.m. on that same list—12 hours later—they were first given a second list to memorize.
The researchers were having a little fun with this group—all in the name of science of course. The second list they gave contained the first of each paired work from the original list, but a different second word to go with it. They wanted to see how well the brain did in handling competing information.
The students’ brains were fudged up when this second list was introduced, and there was a greater likelihood that they’d forget words from the original list. In fact, they could only remember about 32 percent of the words pairs on that first list!
Now, in another group that was given both lists of words at 9 p.m., went to bed and had a full night of sleep and then tested the following morning at 9 a.m. did much better. That original list? They were able to retain about 72 percent of it! The researchers concluded that sleep protects the memory. To preserve yours, make sure you’re getting an appropriate amount of sleep. Again, a minimum of seven hours. If you are struggling with this, try some relaxing rituals before bedtime. A warm bath, a cup of herbal (decaffeinated!) tea, and no news reading or watching before bedtime.
Give yourself time—this is a good habit that needs to be cultivated. Soon, the sandman will be visiting you consistently.
