This Sleep Pattern Accelerates Memory Loss – Possible Link to Alzheimer’s

Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

Sleep disruptions similar to jet lag could cause memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s disease, research finds.

It’s well-known by scientists that there’s a link between Alzheimer’s and sleep, but not what causes what.

Professor Gregory Brewer, who led the research, said:

“The issue is whether poor sleep accelerates the development of Alzheimer’s disease or vice versa.

It’s a chicken-or-egg dilemma, but our research points to disruption of sleep as the accelerator of memory loss.”

The research gave jet-lag to mice that had been genetically engineered to suffer from Alzheimer’s.

They did this by moving the dark period every three days to a different time — which is what causes jet-lag.

The jet-lagged mice had lower levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

This suggests it could be poor sleep that is contributing to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Brewer said:

“This study suggests that clinicians and caregivers should add good sleep habits to regular exercise and a healthy diet to maximize good memory.”

Dementia and sleep

Many other studies have found a link between dementia and sleep.

People who sleep for too little or too long are at a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

Indeed, people who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, one study found.

However, those who sleep for between 5.5 and 7.5 hours per night do not see declines in their cognitive health, even when suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.

Also, getting less REM sleep — the phase in which we dream — is linked to dementia.

During sleep the brain cycles between periods of deep sleep and then up towards shallower periods of sleep in which we tend to dream, whether we remember those dreams or not.

During REM sleep the eyes move rapidly from side-to-side (hence Rapid Eye Movement Sleep).

Sleep apnea has also been linked to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The most common signs of sleep apnea, which affects 30 percent of older people, include:

  • Loud snoring,
  • gasping for air during sleep,
  • breathing stopping for brief periods during the night,
  • morning headache,
  • and daytime sleepiness and irritability.

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Brewer et al., 2015).

How A Daytime Nap Affects Your Brain Volume (M)

There is some stigma around napping, perhaps partly because excessive daytime napping can be a sign of Alzheimer’s.

There is some stigma around napping, perhaps partly because excessive daytime napping can be a sign of Alzheimer's.


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Medication Taken By 1 in 10 May Increase Dementia Risk 79% (M)

Almost one-in-ten regularly take this medication that is repeatedly linked to increased dementia risk.

Almost one-in-ten regularly take this medication that is repeatedly linked to increased dementia risk.

Another study has found a link between taking sleeping medication and increased dementia risk.

Taking sleep medication was linked to a 79 percent increased risk of dementia among white people.

The link was not seen in Black people, however, and Dr Yue Leng, the study’s first author, is not sure of the reason:

“Differences may be attributed to socio-economic status.

Black participants who have access to sleep medications might be a select group with high socio-economic status and, thus, greater cognitive reserve, making them less susceptible to dementia.

It’s also possible that some sleep medications were associated with a higher risk of dementia than others.”

The study included around 3,000 older people, average age 74, almost half of whom were Black.

The results showed that white people were three times as likely to take sleep medication as Black people.

White people were twice as likely to use benzodiazepines, like Halcion, Dalmane and Restoril and 7 times as likely to use “Z-drugs,” such as Ambien.

It may be that the types of drugs that white people take puts them at higher risk of dementia.

Alternatives to medication

For sleep problems, other options than medication should be considered, said Dr Leng:

“The first step is to determine what kind of sleep issues patients are dealing with.

A sleep test may be required if sleep apnea is a possibility.

If insomnia is diagnosed, cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-i) is the first-line treatment.

If medication is to be used, melatonin might be a safer option, but we need more evidence to understand its long-term impact on health.”

The most common signs of sleep apnea, which affects 30 percent of older people, include:

  • Loud snoring,
  • gasping for air during sleep,
  • breathing stopping for brief periods during the night,
  • morning headache,
  • and daytime sleepiness and irritability.

Sleep and dementia

Poor sleep is one of the common symptoms of dementia, so it may be that taking more sleep medications is a result rather than a cause of dementia.

However, other studies have controlled for this factor and still found a link between anti-anxiety and sleep medication and early death.

These find a dose-response effect: the more of the drugs people took, the higher their risk of death.

Many other studies have found a link between dementia and sleep.

People who sleep for too little or too long are at a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

Indeed, people who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, one study found.

However, those who sleep for between 5.5 and 7.5 hours per night do not see declines in their cognitive health, even when suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.

Also, getting less REM sleep — the phase in which we dream — is linked to dementia.

→ Read on: Dementia: 9 Warning Signs Everyone Should Know

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Leng et al., 2023).

How to Fall Asleep In 5 Minutes

Around 40% of US adults say they have trouble falling asleep.

Around 40% of US adults say they have trouble falling asleep.

Writing a to-do list for the next day before bedtime helps people fall asleep faster, research finds.

The more specific the list, the faster people fall asleep.

Use this tip in concert with those described here: How To Fall Asleep Fast.

Dr Michael K. Scullin, who led the study, said:

“We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime.

Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads, and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract nighttime difficulties with falling asleep.”

The 57 people in the study wrote for just five minutes before sleeping.

The study compared writing a to-do list with writing a list of completed activities before bedtime.

Dr Scullin said:

“There are two schools of thought about this.

One is that writing about the future would lead to increased worry about unfinished tasks and delay sleep, while journaling about completed activities should not trigger worry.

The alternative hypothesis is that writing a to-do list will ‘offload’ those thoughts and reduce worry,”

The research was conducted in a sleep lab and people had their electrical brain activity monitored overnight.

Dr Scullin was cautious about the results:

“Measures of personality, anxiety and depression might moderate the effects of writing on falling asleep, and that could be explored in an investigation with a larger sample.

We recruited healthy young adults, and so we don’t know whether our findings would generalize to patients with insomnia, though some writing activities have previously been suggested to benefit such patients.”

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (Scullin et al., 2018).

Why Do People Talk In Their Sleep?

Around two-thirds of adults report talking in their sleep.

Around two-thirds of adults report talking in their sleep at some point in their lives.

Most talk during sleep involves a lot of arguments and swearing, research finds.

While dreaming, people seem to be having very tense conversations involving multiple f-words.

One theory about the purpose of dreams is that it is how the brain processes threats.

This could help explain why sleep-talk is so negative.

Why do people talk in their sleep?

The French research monitored 230 people while they slept in the lab.

Most people did not speak that often while asleep, the researchers found.

However, when they did, it was usually to say something negative, like “no” or to swear.

The f-word was recorded 800 times more frequently than while people were awake.

The authors write:

“…sleep talking may correspond to the “punch line” of a conversation, i.e., the emergent, most violent part of the iceberg of covert speech, increasing the negativity of the language and verbal abuse.”

Talking in your sleep is common

Almost two-thirds of sleep-talk was not decipherable — there was a lot of mumbling.

Utterances that could be understood were generally in grammatically correct form.

This suggests the brain is working at a high level during sleep — perhaps similarly to the waking brain.

Certainly, brain scans of people sleeping show high levels of activity during dreaming.

The study’s authors conclude:

“Sleep talking parallels awake talking for syntax, semantics, and turn-taking in conversation, suggesting that the sleeping brain can function at a high level.

Language during sleep is mostly a familiar, tensed conversation with inaudible others, suggestive of conflicts.”

Sleep talking, which is known as ‘somniloquy’, is relatively common, the authors write:

“In epidemiological studies, as many as 66.8% of adults
report having ever talked during their sleep, but only 6.3% of adults speak at least once a week.

Most adults experiencing sleep talking already sleep talked as children.

Sleep talking is equally distributed among girls and boys and is mostly familial.”

The study was published in the journal Sleep (Arnulf et al., 2017).

Digital Detox: 10 Rules To Improve Your Sleep

Digital detox includes changing bedtime habits and adjusting smartphone settings, which helps improve sleep.

Digital detox includes changing bedtime habits and adjusting smartphone settings, which helps improve sleep.

Digital devices have become the scourge of sleep.

Around half of all teenagers check their phones after they have gone to bed, according to one survey.

One in ten admit to checking their phones 10 times during the night.

In response the survey’s authors have come up with 10 rules for digital detox that can help both teenagers and adults alike to get more sleep.

1. Avoid screens before bedtime

Do not use any screens in the 90 minutes before bed.

2. Change pre-bedtime habits

Instead, in the 90 minutes before bedtime, try reading a book, meditating or having a bath.

Social media tends to get you worked up and excited.

For sleep you want the opposite feeling.

3. Reduce exposure to blue light in the evening

Some devices have a “night shift mode” — use it.

Avoid any devices that shine blue light into your eyes in the lead up to bedtime.

4. Set the phone to “airplane mode”

…or similar so that it does not disturb you in the evening.

Some devices can be set to automatically go silent during certain hours.

5. Digital detox: break the habit

Try to break the habit of checking the device in the evening — especially closer to bedtime and for no reason other than boredom.

6. Phone out of easy reach

Put the phone somewhere that makes it difficult to check.

For example, next to your bed or in the bed makes the temptation all the greater.

Across the room is not so tempting.

7. Is social media more important than your health?

Have a think about why you are looking at your phone late at night.

Is it really important?

Is it really worth disturbing your sleep over?

Usually it’s not: much better to improve your health by getting more quality sleep.

8. Curb usage in general for digital detox

Try to cut down on non-essential phone usage at all times.

That will make it easier to cut down in the evening as well.

9. How much are you using the phone?

Use apps that tell you how long you have been using the phone.

One example is ‘RealizD’.

10. Reward for digital detox

Reward yourself for following these digital detox rules.

You will reinforce your own improving behaviour.

The survey was conducted for the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference by Digital Awareness UK.

Insomnia Glasses Aid Sleep By Blocking Blue Light

Insomnia glasses research finds that 90% of Americans use light-emitting devices like smartphones and laptops before going to bed.

Insomnia glasses research finds that 90% of Americans use light-emitting devices like smartphones and laptops before going to bed.

Wearing amber-tinted insomnia glasses for two hours before bedtime improves sleep, research finds.

The reason is that they block out blue light.

Too much blue light before bedtime — like that produced by smartphones — suppresses the sleep hormone melatonin and increases alertness.

Dr Ari Shechter, who led the study, said:

“Now more than ever we are exposing ourselves to high amounts of blue light before bedtime, which may contribute to or exacerbate sleep problems.

Amber lenses are affordable and they can easily be combined with other established cognitive and behavioral techniques for insomnia management.”

Insomnia glasses research

For the study, 14 people with insomnia wore either wrap-around amber-tinted glasses for two hours before bedtime or glasses with clear plastic.

A month later they swapped over, so that everyone had tried both pairs of glasses for a week.

Dr Shechter said:

“The glasses approach allows us to filter out blue-wavelength light from all these sources, which might be particularly useful for individuals with sleep difficulties.”

The results showed that when wearing the insomnia glasses people had, on average, 30 minutes more sleep than when wearing the clear plastic glasses.

Better sleep quality and a reduction in insomnia severity were also reported when wearing the insomnia glasses.

Some smartphones can be adjusted to emit amber, instead of blue light, Dr Shechter said:

 “I do recommend using the amber setting on smartphones at night, in addition to manually reducing the brightness levels.

But blue light does not only come from our phones.

It is emitted from televisions, computers, and importantly, from many light bulbs and other LED light sources that are increasingly used in our homes because they are energy-efficient and cost-effective.”

The amber insomnia glasses also reduced people’s blood pressure.

Dr Shechter said:

“Insomnia is often characterized by physiologic hyperarousal, which may account for the relationship between poor sleep and cardiovascular risk.

Going forward, it will be interesting to examine whether this blue-light blocking approach can be useful for improving cardiovascular outcomes like hypertension in individuals with poor sleep.”

The study was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research (Shechter et al., 2017).