How lack of sleep can affect your memory
LOSING four hours of sleep a night can affect our ability to recall memories in stressful situations, according to a study.
Sleep deprivation has a link with memory loss with age
Researchers asked people to remember the location of card pairs on a computer screen.
Half were allowed a full eight hours of sleep while the rest slept for four hours. All participants were then asked to recall as many of the card pair locations as possible.
Half a night’s sleep turned out to be as effective as a full night in allowing long-term memories to be formed.
But when four-hour sleepers were subject to stress, such as noise, their ability to recall these memories was reduced by about 10 per cent.
Dr Jonathan Cedernaes, of Sweden’s Uppsala university, author of a report in the journal Sleep, said the findings could have practical uses.
He said: “Delaying school start times and greater use of flexible work schedules to increase snooze time for those on habitual short sleep may improve their academic and occupational performance.
“An important next step will be to investigate how chronic sleep loss and chronic stress may interact.”