Comments on: Sleep appears to help the laying down of memory through new brain cell connections

By: Rosie

Rosie — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 09:06:19 +0000

In reply to Christopher Palmer. Christopher - Actually, my bedroom is very dark as I live in the countryside, so no or very low ambient light. I've not heard of earthing but will take a look as you suggest. My question was more to do with the effects of missing out on non-REM sleep as opposed to REM sleep, as I seem to spend all night dreaming and my memory has never been terrific, though it has got me through school, college and work very nicely;) So I wondered if the two might be connected.

By: Christopher Palmer

Christopher Palmer — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:39:11 +0000

In reply to Rosie.

Rosie,
is the bedroom quite dark?
even faint light may alter some hormonal balances.
plus a hormone called cortisol should follow a cycle each day.
I would recommend ‘earthing’, visit earthing.net to get a sense what that means. There is a book too, well worth the read. The reviews on Amazon may encourage.
If you or your man feel competent you could rig a conductive ankle band and have that wired to ground. If you ain’t sure don’t try. Earthing sheets are available, but an inexpensive antistatic band is as good and can be linked to proprietary bonding plug. Earthing can potentate certain meds so heed any advice from their website.
earthing has been demonstrated to normalize cortisol, and the cascades that follow May hare you feel brighter.
CoQ10, garlic oil, and turmeric caps help me feel sharper and energised.
let on how you get on.

By: Robert Park

Robert Park — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:17:11 +0000

Dreaming should not cause you to awake tired but harbouring worries which would manifest themselves in dream would more likely be the cause and particularly so if your normal thoughts tend to be negative when those fears would manifest themselves in the dreamscape. This is often a feature of those who have experienced trauma in their early lives or who feel they have lost control of their present lives. Do not take this comment too literally as even a nutrient deficiency or aging or a health problem could cause you to feel tired upon awakening. If you look for lucid dreaming on the Internet search engine you might find something of interest that may help. Finally, what is a perfect memory and 5 feet 3 inches in height, by itself, sounds perfect!

By: Rosie

Rosie — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 10:38:39 +0000

I’ve just come across this thread, so sorry for the delay in putting my two cents in.
This subject has always interested me and I have a question that I haven’t been able to find an answer to yet.
I sleep around 7 hours a night but almost always wake up tired because I seem to have been dreaming all night. I reckon I view the equivalent of at least 2-3 full length movies each night! Does this mean I’m missing out on the important non-REM sleep? Does this help to explain why my memory has never really been perfect and why I’m not that tall (160 cm)? My husband is usually amazed when I subject the poor man to a blow-by-blow account of my dreams.

By: CJP

CJP — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 09:10:03 +0000

In reply to jean humphreys.

That’s a good point well made Jean.

In people that have tasked their brain with solving a problem the solution may drop out of whatever it is that goes on while they ‘sleep on it’, and creative thoughts or links may come to mind upon waking. Some people keep a notepad and pencil by the bedside in case memory throws up a ‘todo’ that had escaped memory but re-entered the consciousness in the course of sleep.

An acquaintance of mine once equated the brain to a muscle. ‘The more you work it the stronger it gets.’ But as many an athlete knows the harder you train the more sleep and recovery the body needs – marathon runner Paula Radcliffe is reputed to have slept for 12 hours while in training.

What I take from this is that intelligence, and the learning of higher order abilities, may work a bit like physical training. The ‘recovery period’ in between training sessions matters as much as much as does the quality of work undertaken while training – and this could be as true for mental development as for physical development.

Athletes that underestimate the need for rest and recovery between training sessions find that in time they may be beleaguered by injury. High achievers in the workplace that ‘ thrive of stress’ and that do not allow enough respite may find that stress catches up with them over the run of time, suffering adrenal fatigue, depression, or heart attack down the road. [Sir Stephen Redgrave ranks in my mind as a possible instance of over-training.]

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:53:26 +0000

I’m not surprised that this phenomenon takes place during non-REM sleep, after all if the brain is active and ‘firing’ while we dream, it’s not likely to be laying down new pathways with all that going on……a bit like trying to get your computer to do something useful while it’s busy doing something else…..then needs defragging because all the stuff ends up all over the hard disc in random bits!!

I do know that I find I can recall new things better after a good night’s sleep – so maybe it doesn’t just happen in mice.

By: jean humphreys

jean humphreys — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:38:32 +0000

I normally take a nap after lunch. What happens is that I nod off in my armchair, with the cryptic crossword in one hand, and my pencil in the other. If it has been a tricky crossword, with quite a few clues that I just don’t “get”, I find that they will have solved themselves in the back room of my brain, and, as soon as I wake, I am filling them in without even thinking.

By: Robert Park

Robert Park — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 15:44:25 +0000

In reply to Mike Sheldrick.

Like yourself Mike, I too do not require eight hours undisturbed sleep yet my wife does. I am certain that the different requirements are connected to early learning habits and beliefs. Obviously there will be a common denominator in sleep patterns but is there a placebo effect occurring too?

This YouTube video may interest you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_tasOfmfDg

By: Robert Park

Robert Park — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 15:32:58 +0000

This research serves to substantiate common knowledge; cerebrally there is probably little difference between the adaptations of mice and men. An interesting feature of the brain is that if it has nothing to occupy it, it creates fiction. The first thing the brain does when the body goes to sleep is to recreate recent events, especially those which confuse or are emotionally upsetting; in each situation it repeatedly re-enacts the scenario in an attempt to resolve the issue confronting it. Sometimes those dreamscapes are in allegorical language the signs which, although universal, are unique to the dreamer depending on culture and experience within society. There appears to be a connection between the emotions, which has its own intelligence, and that of the intellect, which when sleeping interact with each other; the instinct and the logic. As an amateur enthusiast in dream analysis I learned this from experience and observation rather than from academic study.

By: Mike Sheldrick

Mike Sheldrick — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 14:53:17 +0000

Somewhat off topic, but I continue to wonder about the proper amount of time we need in sleep to optimize health. I can agree that we need some amount of sound, undisturbed sleep, but is there any basis at all for the insistence that we need eight hours of it. What proportion of REM and deep non-REM might this be? Is it possible that the person getting say, four hours of deep non-REM sleep is better off than someone who gets only two? What about other sleep modes, like a two-hour afternoon nap, coupled with six hours at night.

Seems to me that sleep studies are still in their infancy, even though we’ve been working seriously on them for — oh I don’t know, 50 years.

Personally, I find it difficult to sleep more than 6 hours, don’t feel tired for most of the day, but when I do, I can usually take a nap. Have no idea how healthy this is or how to train myself into a healthier pattern.