Sleep Deprivation and Memory

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Sleep Deprivation and Memory
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Introduction
The lack of sleep can affect an individuals
memory and their ability to perform simple daily
tasks. The brain will attempt to compensate for
the adverse effects caused by the lack of sleep.
The ability of the brain to function following
sleep deprivation appears to vary depending on
the task at hand. Speculations are that the brain
is adversely affected by sleep deprivation
because certain patterns of electrical and
chemical activity that occur during sleep are
sporadic, hindering the brains ability to
function normally. Based on recent experiments
dealing with sleep deprivation, one can conclude
that the processes related to memory and learning
that occur during sleep begin in the deep phases
of sleep and are consolidated during REM. It has
recently been demonstrated that a relationship
occurs between sleep and neuronal growth.
Therefore, memory and learning are tied to the
amount of sleep that you get every night. The
purpose of this experiment is to understand how
sleep deprivation hinders your ability to
remember things.
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Materials Methods
Twenty yellow 1x 1 paired flashcards containing
stickers of a dog, polar bear, panda, butterfly,
heart, pink smile face, black smile face, flower,
tulip and a star were used. A clock was needed to
take time measurements. Each day for ten days
vary the hours of sleep by one half hour. When
awoken at 6 am every morning, first eat five
chocolate donut holes with a glass of milk for
breakfast. Waiting fifteen minutes. Then sit at a
large brown kitchen table with lots of light.
Spread out the twenty yellow flashcards in rows
of four and columns of five, face down. Playing
memory with these cards, only allowing two cards
to be turned over at one time, if not a match
turn them both back over and start over. Time how
long it takes to complete the whole board of
matches. Record the time it takes and the hours
slept that night in the table.
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Results
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Discussion
In the real world, failures due to sleep
deprivation are catastrophic. The data here shows
that there is a decline in memory performance. At
first lack of sleep does not have much of an
effect until later on in the experiment. On the
eight day there seemed to be a stressor involved
in hindering the experiment, the lack of sleep
may have helped. Any amount of sleep deprivation
will diminish mental performance. One can
conclude that chronic sleep loss may hasten other
more serious health problems such as diabetes,
obesity and memory loss.
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Conclusion
Sleep is an important to the human body as food
and water, but most of us dont get enough sleep.
Insufficient sleep can cause the brain to
fatigue. Decision-making also appears to benefit
form this overnight form of thought. Therefore
lack of sleep and the addition of stress can
affect both learning and memory negatively. Lack
of sleep, making a fatigued person, leads to
impaired judgment and also to be more likely to
make mistakes. A two hour loss of sleep reduces
alertness, results in poor judgment, reduced
motivation, shortened attention span, slower than
normal reaction time and poorer memory. Sleep is
not used for rest it is used for optimizing the
structure of memories. This is vital for
survival. Sleep deprivation results in
intellectual deprivation.
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Always Forgetting things?
Always tired?
Sleep Deprivation can mess with your mind!
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SO GET SOME SLEEP!!
Getting enough sleep is very important!
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THE END