Memory Consolidation

Without a doubt, sleep plays a critical factor in our body’s restorative purposes.  REM sleep is particularly important for our brain, whilst slow wave sleep helps our body restore.  One theory suggests that sleep actually rids our brain of toxins.  While we are asleep, our brain cells shrink, allowing the cerebral-spinal fluids to circulate through our brain and clean up debris and toxins.  Our brain is a very powerful thing.  As college students we spend most of our time memorizing and learning new information.  Our semantic memory in particular (the declarative memory for facts) is constantly being pushed.  College students will spend sleep-less hours studying for exams, when in reality, they are hindering their brains capacity to remember and consolidate information.  In one experimental study, subjects were given 60 word pairs to memorize. Between the group that had a full nights rest and the group that did not, the sleeping group showed a higher score.  High performers in particular demonstrated a big correlation between slow wave sleep and declarative memory.  The big point of this test: study a lot before going to sleep- and sleep enough to remember it! On the other hand, getting adequate sleep prior to learning new information is just as important. Being sleep deprived while trying to study not only impairs our focus, but it also affects our hippocampus, which in turn, lowers our brains ability to store new information. The truth is, many of us are naturally sleep deprived. We live in a society filled with alarm clocks and early, institutionalized times. We can combat these factors by improving the quality of our sleep and our total sleep time. However, we know sometimes there are time constraints and there are days when we cannot get enough sleep.  The good news: naps have very-high benefits! When we nap, the fatigued cells are given enough time to rest, restoring the cells deteriorated state and allowing our brain to run more efficiently. Interesting enough, even a five minute nap yields more benefits on declarative memory than mantaining an awake condition.