A new research study led by Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) published in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May, shows an association between midlife and later life sleeping habits with memory; and links extreme sleep durations to worse memory in later life. The study suggests that extreme changes in sleep duration from middle age to older age may also worsen memory function.
“Sleep Duration In Midlife and Later Life In Relation to Cognition: The Nurses’ Health Study,” led by Elizabeth Devore, ScD, instructor in medicine in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH found that women who slept five or fewer hours, or nine or more hours per day, either in midlife or later life, had worse memory, equivalent to nearly two additional years of age, than those sleeping seven hours per day. Women whose sleep duration changed by greater than two hours per day over time had worse memory than women with no change in sleep duration.
This study was the first to evaluate associations of sleep duration at midlife and later life, and change in sleep duration over time, with memory in 15,263 participants of the Nurses’ Health Study. Participants were female nurses, aged 70 or older and were free of stroke and depression at the initial cognitive assessment.
“Given the importance of preserving memory into later life, it is critical to identify modifiable factors, such as sleeping habits, that may help achieve this goal,” Devore stated. “Our findings suggest that getting an ‘average’ amount of sleep, seven hours per day, may help maintain memory in later life and that clinical interventions based on sleep therapy should be examined for the prevention of cognitive impairment.”
Specifically, researchers report that:
- Extreme sleep durations may adversely affect memory at older ages, regardless of whether they occur at mid-life or later-life.
- Greater changes in sleep duration appear to negatively influence memory in older adults.
- Women with sleep durations that changed by two or more hours per day from midlife to later life performed worse on memory tests than women with no change in sleep duration, equivalent to being one to two years older in age, compared to those whose sleep duration did not change during that time period.
“These findings add to our knowledge about how sleep impacts memory,” said Devore. “More research is needed to confirm these findings and explore possible mechanisms underlying these associations.”
The minimum hours of sleep required for any individual is important for them to be able to function properly the next day. Sleep allows one to rest and recover from one’s daily activities. It has been proven that a good nights rest before a test or exam is essential for your memory. Lack of sleep can make a small task seem huge. Whether lack of sleep alone affects the memory function in the brain of older people is debatable. Many other factors such as genetics, diet, exercise, and willingness to stimulate your memory and brain will have a long term effect on how the brain and its memory will function.
So many people often spend a lot of their time doing work or spending time with their family and friends instead of taking a nap or getting enough sleep in through the night. Sleep is definitely an important activity in our lives and we often look past it. I will admit that some nights I sleep for 5-6 hours. This can have a bad influence and damage the body in many ways.
I agree that the older we get the chance of memory loss also gets higher. As we grow older and we continue not getting enough sleep in, our bodies start to change according to the sleep duration, and after a couple of years the body will accept the fact that such little amount of sleep is needed to function. So I agree with 14017386, a nap a day will do wonders.
My question also is if this is only a gender based problem? And maybe it will be possible to prove it more by testing it with the male gender?
Remember: “There is only one thing people like that is good for them; a good night’s sleep,” – EW Howe. We should always try to get 7 – 8 hours of sleep in each night. When you are well rested, the whole day will seem much better.
The brain,like any other muscle in the body, needs regular exercise in order to optimize its function. It needs nutrients that will nourish it, intellectual activities/challenges to exercise the memory and problem solving functions, and sufficient rest to rejuvenate and sort out information relating to the entire body ultimately. I completely agree with the notion that irregular sleeping patterns will affect the brain’s function and cause long-term impairment such as memory loss in the later stages of ones life as mentioned in the article. If the brain is not taken good care of when it’s still young and highly active,it will begin to fail you as time goes on.The manner in which a car’s engine is taken care of,for example,will determine its lifespan-same for the brain.Excessive sleep kills the brain cells and as we all know,they are irreplaceable-therefore one should stick to regular,healthy sleeping patterns as part of taking care of the brain in order to continue to optimize its function during the later stages of life.
I was immediately captured by the title of the article because I sleep for long durations myself. I am an 18 year old female and would like to know if I too will suffer the same effects in my older ages even if I change my sleeping habits now. I too would like to know why the research was focussed mainly on women and if the fact that women experience mostly temporary memory loss during menopause was taken into consideration. Perhaps it would further validate the results if the same research was done on men with all the other parameters remaining the same. If men are excluded from these results, what would be a suitable biological explanation that substantiates their immunity to memory loss in old age?
Indeed this article is interesting and very informative but I am still surprised why does it affect women mostly because from my point of view men are the ones who do not have regular sleeping patterns
Sleep is important for brain functionality and we all love it. However, being a BSc student means that you might have to sacrifice a few hours of sleep!
I find it very interesting that changing the amount of sleep at midlife has negative implications upon our lives later on. Many studies based on sleep have been conducted and conclusions have been drawn that not having enough sleep impairs concentration, affects the mood and general daily performance. Now, knowing that depriving yourself of sleep one time and then catching up later poses a greater threat (in terms of memory) when you’re older, is even more alarming!
One should appreciate such studies, as, they continue to enlighten us about factors that put our well-being on the line; that we should do something about eliminating such negative factors in order to have a smooth and prolonged life.
This is a great caution for us youth and it shows how essential science is to our lives, I think most of us who went through this article will start avoiding this kinds of consequences and educate those who does not know about them. However, in some circumstances we find that it is impossible to sleep those healthy hours especially to us youth, so if you still in your twenties does it mean we still safe to sleep less or more and still don’t experience those consequences or how is
“midlife” define in this article?
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Interesting it is indeed, especially for us as university students because we tend to have variable sleeping patterns. The fact that having a constant sleeping duration is essential for a healthy memory as we get older is interesting. We usually tend to reduce our sleeping hours when it comes to examination time and we don’t take into account that our brains need some rest. We ensure that we feed our brains with so much information, hoping that it is going to grasp every single knowledge and we careless that our brains need some rest. After examinations, we make sure that we catch up on all the sleeping hours we have lost during exam time and we sleep long hours. I honestly thought that I had a healthy sleeping lifestyle but my perspective has changed. After reading this article, I’ve realised that I should adopt a constant sleeping duration in order to stimulate my mind and keep my brain healthy. I am also taking into account that my sleeping patterns at this stage of my life, might have an influence on my memory in the future. Therefore I shall sleep an average of 7 hours from now on.
Indeed it is a good and also catching article about the effects on how we tend to change our range of sleeping. The way we rest or sleep can define the life that you might have in the future. Some of the disorder that affects us mentally, it is due to the way we tend to sleep..Some people don’t have a fixed sleeping duration and sooner or later they will realize that the were busy shortening their lives but according to the article, scientist are still going to do other research on this kind of mind thrilling aspect were people are noit really clear whether is it true or no
Does this affect Man as well, because if so it would mean no more short sleeps during week days and long sleeps in the weekend, i don’t want to experience memory loss. thinking about it now I can see how such sleeping habits would pose as a threat to people, remember it is the smallest things in ones life that greatly influential which in this case “sleep”. it is nice corrected every now and then.
I always took sleep or resting for granted, i never thought it had so much impact in our lives.All i knew was that getting some rest would help with reducing stress,but i didn’t know that enough rest is also good for memory. This information can help reduce the risk of getting diseases such as Alzhemier
It is widely know that bad habits like drinking, smoking or eating wrong can influence the memory at a later stage, this article tackles the problem from a different angle making people even more aware of how they ought to live a healthy life. Previous bloggers have mentioned the same question: What is the affect on males? And are there any other obvious things we should look at to maintain a healthy lifestyle?
This article is especially interesting because it shows how different the male and female bodies are created. This new findings can help women all around the world with the problem of memory loss. This can then help families so that less arguments starts that can snowball into worse arguments that can lead to divorce and maybe death. This may seem harsh but it is the truth, stupid things happen because people don’t like to repeat things. So this findings are very crucial for the every day life. And it would be quite interesting to know if this only effects women or does this type of memory loss happens to men as well?
Very interesting and informative article. It is very essential that one should stick to one sleeping pattern everyday. As this article is gender based, I want to know if this is also applicable to older males.
since we know that its gender based,well i wanted to know that is it also applicable to older males?
It sounds reasonable that the older you get your sleeping habits change and memory loss occurs gradually. During the midlife life period the functions of the total body helps towards accepting changes in sleep duration and can cope with it. The older we get our bodies and brains become less resilient to changes in our lifestyle. At retirement age in other studies it is recommended that the brain needs to be exercised by reading, playing thinking card games such as Bridge. A quick regular nap per day does wonders to the body as would regular exercise. It is thus understandable that when a person is deprived of sleep for long periods that is is more probable to have a detrimental affect on memory. One would go along with what Devore stated: “ getting an average amount of sleep say 7 hours per day may help maintain memory in later life”.
Research like this can prolong and improve the life of the female population around the world which is why it deserves more attention because it is often the female generation that keep much of what we know as family together today. It is interesting as well as essential for us all to understand the effect of something as taken for granted as sleep, its adverse reactions on the life expectancy and quality of life on us all is life changing. It would have been interesting if this study had been of a broader group across all genders as the differences between the two could have been used to create a more accurate assumption.
Very interesting article, it had always been well documented that incorrect foods and mind altering substances were a key factor in memory loss, but this new research being done on sleeping habits and their effects on memory and memory retention is fascinating. If for argument sake, I, being a male, went my whole adolescence and early adulthood with the incorrect amount of sleep (9 hours an evening) and never changed this routine, would I still be at risk of memory loss? I would be interested to find out.
It is fascinating how something so simple as sleep can have an effect on our memory function.But the article is just about female gender, what effect would sleep have on male genders..??And life circumstances would also determine the sleep average of people,is that sleeping average just of the sum total of the hours of the day, or the average of the sum total of hours of the week..??