In the chaos of our daily lives, we often need reminders to prioritize our sleep. We are all guilty of staying up late to finish our assignments, glued to our screens as we binge-watch our favorite shows or carelessly scroll through social media as we ignore time passing by. But many of us have failed to realize the impact of lack of sleep, not only leaving us feeling tired and groggy but wrecking our mental health. From college students pulling countless all-nighters, or individuals trying to balance work and family, sleep deprivation is an issue that affects all of us.
Sleep Deprivation and Mental Health:
Sleep deprivation is not only the tired or the groggy feeling in the morning but it also takes away the essential restorative process that occurs during your sleep. Chronic sleep deficiencies are linked to an increase in mental health risks including depression, anxiety, insomnia, and cognitive deficits. Sleep deprivation disrupts our brain’s ability to process emotion, make rational decisions, consolidate memories, and remove anything excessive. As a result, it causes your mental health to suffer leading to mood swings, memory loss, and irrational decision-making.
Sleep Deprivation and Cognitive Deficits
According to research studying “Sleep Deprivation and Memory: Meta-Analytic Reviews of Studies on Sleep Deprivation Before and After Learning,” though sleep deprivation has been studied to affect before and after retaining newly learned material,”… there is no quantitative analysis of the size of the effects.”( Newbury) In the study they conducted a meta-analytic approach to estimate the effect “… size associated with the impact of sleep deprivation, both when the deprivation occurs before learning and when it occurs after learning.”( Newbury)
In this study:
When we learn something new, our brain needs time to solidify the memories turning from short-term to long-term memories, a process known as memory consolidation. As we enter into our deep slumber of sleep, our brain kicks in, acting like a little “save button” to strengthen the fragile memories. It ensures that the memories become more permanent and long-term.
Now imagine you have an important exam or project to complete and you left last minute. So you decided to pull an all-nighter to meet that deadline while skimping out on your beauty rest. The next day, you wake up and feel groggy and tired. Wonder why? It is because of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation impairs your brain’s ability to encode and retain new information properly. Inside the brain, the hippocampus is a tiny seahorse-shaped structure that plays a fundamental role in memory consolidation. The hippocampus also gets affected by your sleep quality, “including the “loss of the first night of sleep may be critical.”(Newbury,et al) It was also noted the importance of REM sleep or the rapid movements of the eyes that can be affected, which also need when consolidating “emotional” memories. REM sleep is a magical stage where your important memories, such as milestones, accomplishments, and other meaningful memories, are processed and stored.
