You Can Learn A New Language While You Sleep, Study Finds (M)
Swiss study finds memory for new words reinforced by listening again during sleep.
Category: Sleep
The Very Best Insomnia Therapy Has These 5 Key Components (M)
This is the therapy combo that conquers chronic insomnia.
These Sleep Patterns Are Linked To 50% Increased Dementia Risk & Memory Loss (M)
Are you sleeping right? How your sleep patterns might shape your cognitive destiny.
How Winter Secretly Damages Your Sleep Patterns (M)
How daylight exposure affects our internal body clocks, impacting our sleep patterns — especially in winter.
Sleep: 10 Fascinating Psychology Studies To Know
Including: how naps affect the brain, how winter changes our sleep and how to wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Including: how naps affect the brain, how winter changes our sleep and how to wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Sleep and mental health are irrevocably intertwined — too little or even too much can both be injurious to mental and physical health.
Yet it seems to be a state over which we have so little control.
Sleep has naturally fascinated researchers, who have asked how naps affect the brain, how winter affects our sleep and how to wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Studies have also explored how lack of sleep affects our emotions and whether, if we cannot sleep, we become a different person after midnight.
So, here are 10 psychology studies from the members-only section of PsyBlog covering the latest sleep science.
(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)
1.
Sleep: The Ideal Amount For Optimal Mental Health (M)
Disruption of deep sleep, which occurs more during the first part of the night, is linked to memory problems and the build-up of proteins in the brain that are linked to dementia.
2.
Waking 100 Times A Night Is Normal And May Indicate Healthy Sleep (M)
The reason for these ultra-short awakenings is partly related to memory, the researchers think.
3.
How Your Mind Changes After Midnight (M)
We ruminate at night and it becomes more difficult to control ourselves.
4.
The Advice This Sleep Scientist Gives Every Insomnia Patient (M)
A sleep habit many people develop that unfortunately causes insomnia.
5.
Why In Winter It Feels Like You’re Running On Empty (M)
Sleep adapts to the seasons and human physiology is ‘down-regulated’ in the winter.
6.
How Lack Of Sleep Affects People’s Empathy (M)
Around half of people in developed societies do not get enough sleep.
7.
How To Wake Up Feeling Refreshed (M)
“How you wake up each day is very much under your own control, based on how you structure your life and your sleep.” – Professor Matthew Walker
8.
The Unusual Sleep Disorders That Are Difficult To Treat (M)
Parasomnias include a whole range of sleep disorders that are surprisingly difficult to treat.
9.
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.
10.
Sleep Is At The Heart Of Almost All Mental Health Issues (M)
Whether it is anxiety, schizophrenia, Tourette’s or depression, all have circadian rhythm disruption in common.
.
The Unusual Sleep Disorders That Are Difficult To Treat (M)
Parasomnias include a whole range of sleep disorders that are surprisingly difficult to treat.
The 4 Sleep-Wake Patterns That Explain How Energy Levels Fluctuate (M)
Long-held beliefs about sleep-wake patterns challenged: around half of all people are neither ‘larks’ or ‘owls’.
The Sleep Pattern Linked To Being Smarter
Half the people in the study, though, slept about an hour less than the recommended amount.
Half the people in the study, though, slept about an hour less than the recommended amount.
Sleeping between 7 and 8 hours a night is best for the brain, research concludes.
More or less sleep than this is linked to lower cognitive performance.
Half the people in the study, though, slept about an hour less than the recommended amount.
The brains of people who slept four hours or less were nine years older, cognitively.
Over-sleeping was also linked to worse cognitive performance.
Professor Adrian Owen, the study’s first author, said:
“We really wanted to capture the sleeping habits of people around the entire globe.
Obviously, there have been many smaller sleep studies of people in laboratories but we wanted to find out what sleep is like in the real world.
People who logged in gave us a lot of information about themselves.
We had a fairly extensive questionnaire and they told us things like which medications they were on, how old they were, where they were in the world and what kind of education they’d received because these are all factors that might have contributed to some of the results.”
The results come from over 40,000 people around the world who completed a survey and cognitive tests.
Lack of sleep — or too much — was bad for the brains of young and old just the same.
Dr Conor Wild, study co-author, said:
“We found that the optimum amount of sleep to keep your brain performing its best is 7 to 8 hours every night and that corresponds to what the doctors will tell you need to keep your body in tip-top shape, as well.
We also found that people that slept more than that amount were equally impaired as those who slept too little.”
The study was published in the journal Sleep (Wild et al., 2018).
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.
The Advice This Sleep Scientist Gives Every Insomnia Patient (M)
A sleep habit many people develop that unfortunately causes insomnia.
