Missing sleep may hurt your memory

Lack of sleep, already considered a public health epidemic, can also lead to errors in memory, and finds a new study by researchers according to Science daily.

The study, found participants deprived of a night’s sleep they were shown in a series of images.

“We found memory distortion is greater after sleep deprivation,” said Kimberly Fenn, associate professor of psychology and co-investigator on the study. “And people are getting less sleep each night than they ever had.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls insufficient sleep an epidemic and said it’s linked to vehicle crashes, industrial disasters and chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.

The researchers conducted experiments to gauge the effect of insufficient sleep on memory. The results: Participants who were kept awake for 24 hours — and even those who got five or fewer hours of sleep — were more likely to mix up event details than participants who were well rested.

“People who repeatedly get low amounts of sleep every night could be more prone in the long run to develop these forms of memory distortion,” Fenn said. “It’s not just a full night of sleep deprivation that puts them at risk.

N.H.Kh