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.”
This is a very serious issue because a lot of women there do not know how their unregulated sleeping hours can affect them in the near future. Most of them have unregular sleeping hours because they are trying to balance their lives. This is a very sad issue
I think this topic is one of great interest to many scholars. Sleeping routines have changed for many in an attempt to increase working times for our hectic lifestyles. no-the-less this topic opens up our eyes to the after effects of our current actions.
hey
whaow! am i really heading for disaster?
now this i didn’t know until this very day, this is so informative. so basically the hours we use for sleeping can either keep us healthy and well or affect us dismally in the future.
sleep plays a critical role in thinking and learning, it is also important for the correct functioning of the brain. but why is this study based on women only?..scary, but nevertheless, i have learned a lot from this passage.
An interesting topic. The theory holds a lot of promise yet it needs to be more thoroughly tested. The theory’s validity would be greater if they shifted their investigation onto male subjects as well. I’ve read that the brain goes through a selection and storage process during sleep. Maybe irregular or extreme sleep patterns affect the “selection and storage” process? Just a thought. I guess time will tell.
I strongly agree with the information being given to us in this article, although I also agree that more research needs to be done so people can fully understand why sleep is extremely important to human beings to be able to function on a daily basis. I can relate to this article, as I’m sure anyone studying can, before a test a good nights sleep makes all the difference the next day. Your understanding of the work is better as well as your memory of what you have studied the previous days before. But adequate sleep provides us with more than just a top notch memory. Firstly the obvious, getting enough sleep makes us feel fresh and confident the next day and also provides us with energy and focus to survive the day. Sleep helps us with our emotional well-being, when you are sleep deprived you are more likely to feel down or depressed. As stated in the article, people who sleep longer live longer and this is true. Our bodies need to relax and reboot and sleep allows us to do this. Sleep deprivation puts extra stress on our bodies which will in the future cause our bodies to completely shut down sooner. Also people who sleep less, have a higher blood pressure level than those who sleep more, resulting in health risks in the future. Our bodies produce growth hormones when we are asleep and that is why sleep is so important for our growth. We need sleep to function in daily life, research proves this but most importantly our bodies prove this better than any research. Sleep for 4-5 hours one night and 8 hours the next, you are guaranteed to feel better after a good nights sleep.
whaow! Am I really heading for disaster?
i never knew how important is sleeping for the prescribed hours was until this very day. Now this is informative though a bit
Being a species reliant on sleep, as we are, research into sleep and how it could possibly affect our daily lives is quite obviously important.
It is of personal importance to me seeing as I plan to enter “later-life” in the future, and this research has possibly provided me with a way to make it more memorable, so to speak. I’m glad there were over 15000 participants that took part in the study, as the large number would effectively eliminate any biases that may occur in the results due to individual participants. That said, the 15000 participants were all female, and all nurses, and due to these factors, there hasn’t really been a randomized control trail to establish these results.
While the research may prove beneficial in the future, I agree with your last statement that more research is needed, preferably with a greater difference in participants concerning their gender and occupation.
I absolutely love this article, it is very interesting! Can’t wait to hear what further studies will reveal on this matter. Now we know just how important time management is and why we hit a blank after studying all night and trying to write test on 2 hours sleep…
I find this very related to my life. While I in high school, I used to sleep around 7 hours per day. After finishing grade 12 in 2012, I took a gap year in the year 2013. During my gap year I used to sleep more than 9 hours per day. Now that I’m back to school, I sleep less than 5 hours per day, meaning I changed by greater than 2 hours. After reading this I feel worried, I might have the worst brain in the future.
I find this article very intriguing; along with unexpected results.
Until now, I had only expected shortage of sleep to cause problem in later life. However, after reading this article, I realized that the excess of sleep can also cause memory loss in later life. This is a completely new concept for me and I am shocked in a satisfying way.
It would be even more wonderful if they could research further on whether the harmful effects differ significantly between shortage and excess of sleep.
There have been studies stating the amount of sleep one requires throughout their life – that babies sleep an average of 16 hours and an adult an average of 8. The loss of memory is seen as an almost natural process of growing old; however, we hardly took the time to include sleeping patterns into this process. This study in particular is extremely interesting – stating that our cognitive memory diminishes in older life due to our sleeping patterns. It would be interesting to test this not only on older women but also on adolescents and men.
I did not know 5 or less hours of sleep or 9 and over would impact memory that much. I do agree with the claim made.
Furthermore,not to mention much, but I have seen this happen to one of the people I know. I konw this is just one out of so many but it is still an event. It has been going on for years and this person’s memory is imparied to the point where common knowlege is easily foegotten. This person has been sleeping for excessive hours of the day for years now. I had been wondering about this person’s state and with the help of this article I now have some ensight of the problem.
I do hope there is a solution to help people who are already affected.
Interesting! Yet one can’t help to wonder why this has such an effect and why the effect is delayed?
Then what about brain stimulation. I do believe it is true, but doubt that it would affect one’s memory so much. I look forward to this theory being tested…
The information expressed by this article is definitely very useful it makes me start to reconsider many aspects in life that affect by sleeping pattern. When most of us were growing up we are told that we need about 9 hours of sleep but no one ever explained the effects of moving from being forced to sleep for 9 hours to sleeping for 3 hours are.
A normal child’s behaviour is that you sleep for long hours when you are a baby, then you grow older and begin to resent sleep. When you become a teenager sleep becomes your best friend and with time you sleep less and less, mainly because your academic success is far too demanding. After reading this blog I then became curious, does that mean that to some extent all of us lose memory due to the variation in sleep duration throughout our lives? Is it better to start sleeping less at an early age, perhaps 7 hours, to get your body used to it?
All my life I’ve been told that sleep was important. I have acknowledged this, as sleep is required for proper brain function. Since I follow a strict sleeping regime as a result, this article is a comfort to my future health state.
However, the study, as a previous commenter stated, seems to have only been done on older woman. Women and men have different sleep patterns as the varying hormones in men and women affect the body and thus the brain. Regardless of this the author has stated that researchers regarded both male and female when researching this aspect, in the conclusion.
Sleep also contributes to greater mental functioning as a short term advantage.
I agree with the facts that mentioned in this article, that a consistent average amount of sleep should be maintained for an individuals well being. However it is evident that these findings are from research done only on older female participants.
Thus this leaves a few unanswered questions: will this findings be the same for male participants?; what findings could a younger group of adults from both genders yield?; should environmental and behavioral backgrounds be brought into account?
Besides the above mentioned such findings as that within the article can be accepted as sensible.
In response to Nicole’s speculation on whether an average of 7 hours of sleep a week would have the same effect on memory and the body as 7 hours per night over a week, I think that it would not be the same. According to the article, a 2 hour fluctuation in sleeping hours takes a toll on the body and mind. It is believed that visual tasks would be especially vulnerable to sleep loss because iconic memory has short duration and limited capacity (Raidy and Scharff 2005). It is so important that not only women, but all adults ensure that they develop healthy, regular sleeping patterns in order to maintain mental and cognitive in their later years.
The whole day busy learning new stuff you will eventually have to sleep in order to recharge your body.During that time it will be processing things you learned throughout the course of the day and that is why for a person studying the night before the test its hard to remember most of the information.Sleeping is good for your health but i agree that overdoing it may have negative impacts on your health depending on the activity level and age.
My question is for those who sleep long hours even when their bodies did not work too muchstudy too much during the day,do they have some kind of sickness or disorder?
This article is very interesting and informative. It is definitely important to get enough sleep for proper function of the brain the next day.
The research is female based and I think a lot of females would look after their average sleeping hours a night after reading this article. Seven hours sleep a night is quite a challenge being a student but with better time management I think we would be able to obtain seven hours of sleep a night and lower our chances of getting memory loss in the nearby future.
The despite for the few difference between males and females, I think the average sleeping hours for males would be almost the same as females. It would be interested to find out if sleeping the average seven hours that gives you 49 hours a week will give the same risk for memory loss than getting 49 hours of sleep a week in different unequal quantities over seven days ?