The human body requires to rest and does this through the sleeping process. During this periodic rest, one usually in an unconscious mode and is unresponsive the environment around. Generally, getting enough sleep is important in ensuring that one leads a healthy life. Therefore, with a good diet, regular exercises and enough hours of sleep, one can rest assured that his or life is less likely to be in danger concerning health problems. In fact, doctors recommend that an average person sleep for at least seven hours in a day. However, many people do not get enough rest due to a number of reasons. Among these reasons are stress, tight work schedules, taking drinks with caffeine, eating too much just a little time before bed which cause discomfort and the general believe that sleeping is time wasting as people fail to attach much importance to sleep. Similarly, people may not get enough sleep if their health condition is bad and are in pain. While people may think that sleeping is a waste of time, they need to understand that failure to sleep can cause various problems.
There are both long-term and short-term effects of having inadequate sleep. In the short term, individuals who do not get enough sleep are more likely to cause car accidents, get moody and be in conflicts, and have an impaired memory. On the other hand, long-term effects of sleep deprivation for a long time include diabetes, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke and heart failure. Moreover, one may suffer from depression and obesity. Furthermore, it can result to premature wrinkles and the darks circles common under the eyes and affect skin appearance by increase the cortisol, which is a stress hormone that causes the breakdown of collagen fibers responsible; for stretching skin and making it appear smooth. This paper goes into details to explain on how getting enough sleep can help boost one’s memory.
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Research shows that there exists a possible link between sleep patterns and the memory of an individual. Memory refers to the ability of an individual to encode, consolidate and retrieve information (Sarode et al., 2013). The encoding process involves getting or acquiring new information into the neural circuits while consolidation refers to the strengthening that occurs to this information for storage. Additionally, memory falls on two categories based on whether the retrieval process is conscious in nature or subconscious. The conscious retrieval is called the explicit or declarative memory while the subconscious process refers to the implicit or the non-declarative memory. Moreover, these memories further fall into two more categories. On the one hand, the declarative memory is classified into episodic which is the diary of the brain that records events and determines the ability to recall them, and semantic memory which is the brain’s dictionary consisting of the facts. The non-declarative memory is classified into four categories, which are the priming memory, the procedural, conditioning and the non-associative memory. According to Sarode et al (2013), the procedural memory is expressed when one is able to learn some motor skill such as swimming while the conditioning memory is the response that an individual learns to show to a neutral stimulus. Before getting to know how sleep affects one’s memory, it is important to understand the different phases of sleep.
Generally, sleep falls into two broad categories, that is, the rapid eye movement (REM) and the non-rapid eye movement (NREM). According to Mallick et al (2011), REM sleep refers to the stage where the eyes are able to move quickly in various directions. This phase is usually associated with dreams that one experiences while sleeping. In fact, a REM disorder happens during the dreaming process whereby one may start walking around, shouting or even screaming. However, NREM stage does not involve movement of the eyes. Notably, an individual follows a cycle during his or her sleep with the NREM phase occurring first and then followed by some short instances of the REM phase. Additionally, the NREM sleep consists of three stages that one must pass through before getting to the next phase, which is the rapid eye movement phase. One experiences about four to five cycles of sleep with them alternating between the two phases. The first stage of non-rapid eye movement sleep is when one closes the eyes but can easily wake up. The second stage is when one falls into light sleep, the body temperatures begin to lower down, and the rate of heart beta decreases while the third stage occurs when one gets into deep sleep. It is during this deep sleeping stage that the body is set for the repair and re-growing of tissues, building of the muscles and bones, and strengthening of the immune system. On the other hand, the REM period occurs in about 90 minutes after one falls asleep with the first period lasting for about ten minutes and goes on to get longer with the hours of sleep (Mallick et al, 2011). Moreover, the heart rate and breathing are quite intense during this state and the brain much more at work explaining why this is usually the dreaming stage of the sleep. Children may spend more time in this stage as compared to the adults. Having understood these terms, the next thing is to examine the various effects of sleep on the different memories.
This section focuses on the effects of sleep generally on the episodic, semantic, conditioning and the procedural memories. As stated earlier, the process of getting things into the memory involves the acquisition, consolidation and the recalling activities. Notably, the acquisition of information and recalling processes occur when one is awake. However, researchers believe that sleep is important for consolidation of this information to happen no matter what kind of memory is involved (Wilhelm et al, 2011). Consolidation finds its base from the reactivation of the encoded representations of the memory during the slow-wave sleep and this information is the integrated into the long-term memory from where retrieval occurs. Therefore, if one does not get enough sleep, then the brain will find it difficult to absorb information and therefore recalling process will be poor as well. Additionally, sleep aid in sharpening the mind and affects the fine motor skills, physical reflexes and individual judgment. In fact, various studies show that people usually perform better in tests or other activities including athletics after some period of sleep. Research done among students shows that most of them who spend the whole night cramming for a test find it difficult to recall this information as compared to those who read and give themselves enough time to sleep prior to the examination period. Although scientists do not know exactly how sleep affects the memory, they argue that its effects are felt on the hippocampus and the neo-cortex regions of the brain which are responsible for the long-term memory. Additionally, research shows that the different phases of sleep affect memory with some of the memory getting stable during the random eye movement stage while other memories stabilize in the deep sleep phase.
Conclusion
This paper has provided some insight on how sleeping does enhance memory of an individual. In addition to promoting good memory, sleep is important for the general well-being of an individual with various problems arising because of poor sleeping pattern. Generally, on the benefits to the memory, sleep is considered important for the consolidation of information that is acquired when one is awake. Consolidation involves the process of strengthening this raw data and storing it in the brain as information for easy retrieval when one is awake. Notably, one must acquire information, consolidate it and then retrieve it from the brain for the memory process to exist. The brain consists of different memories including the semantic, procedural, conditioning and the episodic memories. Sleeping is important for the consolidation of information in all of these memories. To conclude, it is important for individuals to ensure they get enough hours of sleep every day for the betterment of their health in addition to helping in the improvement of their memory. However, getting quality sleep proves a challenge for many people especially due to tight schedules and stress and getting the recommended hours of sleep daily may not be easy, but it is quite necessary and people must strive to achieve this goal.
References
Mallick, N., Pandi-Perumal S., McCarley W., and Morrison R.(2011). Rapid Eye Movement Sleep: Regulation and Function. Cambridge University Press.
Sarode DP, et al. (2013). A Sleep to Remember: The Effects of Sleep on Memory, Res Medica , pp.23-34 doi:10.2218/resmedica.v21i1.179
Wilhelm I, Diekelmann S, Molzow I, Ayoub A, Molle M, et al. (2011) Sleep selectively enhances memory expected to be of future relevance. J of Neurosci 31: 1563–1569.
