While you may not be worried about stretching movie time till 2am in the morning depriving yourself of sleep, in the long run it is likely to affect your ability to remember things, is what a new study has suggested.
"Sleep loss is associated with cognitive dysfunction," the researchers who have established impaired cognitive function using insomniac mouse model have said.
The study has been published in the Journal of Proteome Research of the American Chemical Society. The researchers have identified a protective protein whose level declines due to less sleep.
The researchers identified pleiotrophin or PTN, a protein involved in several biological events like neural regeneration, bone development, inflammation, cancer metastasis, and tissue repair. The researchers noticed that with less PTN, the cells of the hippocampus, the memory and learning centre of the brain, start dying. PTN is implicated in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Sleep plays a crucial role in memory and learning. Lack of sleep disrupts the ability of a person to focus efficiently and to recall a memory.
So, is too much sleep good for memory?
No, it is not the case too. Many people catch up on the "pending" sleep during the weekend with a belief that it will compensate for the loss of sleeping hours. But that is not the case. As per a study published in the year 2020 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, under-sleepers and over-sleepers are mentally two years older than those who had 7-8 hours of sleep in a day. The study observed the sleep habits of a group of women in 1986 and 2000; they were interviewed three times over a later six-year period and their memory and thinking skills were analysed.
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The key lies in sleeping better; here's how to do it
So the key to a healthy mind lies in how you sleep. Here are a few tips on how to sleep better:
Fix a routineGet good amount of exercise throughout the dayAvoid tea or alcohol before going to sleepDo not immediately go to sleep; create a peaceful ambience like reading books, listening to music.Have dinner at least 2-3 hours before sleep timeAvoid screen light on the bed
