Benefits of Good Sleep for Brain Health

There are a number of ways getting regular, quality sleep is good for the brain. One is that sleep helps solidify memories. One study shows that when you learn something and then sleep, the brain solidifies the important things you learned and cleans up the unimportant memories from the day. This can help you in social, academic, and professional capacities. 

In social situations, it’s important to remember people’s names and be able to relate that to how they look so you can greet them when you meet them again in a different situation. In an academic environment, there are many things you need to remember, from your schedule to the layout of the buildings and rooms you have classes in, and of course the academic material you are learning. In professional situations, you need to remember the layout of potentially large buildings, the people who you work with and for as well as the people who work for you, and all the rules and regulations that affect the tasks you perform and the industry you work within. If you work overnight, good sleep can be even more elusive and important.

Similarly, sleep deprivation negatively affects cognition, attention, and decision making. This can affect how well you perform in all areas of your life, especially those that require you to pay attention to numerous things at once to perform a given task. An important example is driving, which requires you to focus on many things all at once to successfully travel from one location to another. It’s not a coincidence that the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration attributes more than 100,000 car accidents a year to drowsy driving.

Another area sleep affects is creativity. This can lead to poor problem-solving abilities and prevent individuals from performing the simplest tasks in their day-to-day life. Transversely, good sleep promotes creativity, which is essential in so many areas of our lives. Creativity involves our ability to be flexible and original, to notice patterns, and to think of solutions to problems using information stored in our brains from multiple sources. 

Studies have linked the lack of sleep to negative effects on heart function. When people had interrupted sleep or are forced to stay awake for long hours, they were more likely to have various heart problems, from additional strain to contracting heart disease. There are even studies that link sleep deprivation to mortality. 

Another study linked sleep deprivation to brain damage such as Alzheimer’s. During the day, certain toxins build up in the brain’s interstitial spaces, and during sleep, these toxins are released. Some of these toxins are positively linked with Alzheimer’s Disorder. Without proper sleep, the toxins, which are related with Alzheimer’s Disorder, build up and are not given a proper amount of time to be discarded. Considering that many people often have a hard time sleeping as they get older, quality sleep is essential.

It’s obvious that poor sleep is detrimental to your brain functioning properly, and even to your health and life. If you're facing a major health event like pregnancy or menopause, you need to give extra effort towards quality sleep. Even athletes need quality sleep to perform at their potential. There are many things that can lead to a lack of sleep including depression, anxiety, drinking too much caffeine late in the day, and dozens of others. Another thing that can prevent proper sleep is a teeth and jaw disorder like TMJ or bruxism. If this is not dealt with, you can experience detrimental effects on the brain. You would think something so important would be difficult and expensive to fix, but you’d be wrong.