Trevor Ponder Human Memory

A new study suggest that taking a 45-minute nap at daytime can boost your memory and help you remember what you studied. However, it will only take place if you learned it well.

Declarative memory is a type of human memory that stores facts, while procedural memory is for long-term skills or a memory for skills. According to the researchers, taking the daytime nap or sleeping can help set the declarative memories, which makes the facts you studied easier to remember.

Matthew A. Tucker is the lead researcher and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Sleep and Cognition. He said that, “sleep appears to have an impact on what is learned well, but not so much when on is not motivated to learn.”

A study was created requiring 33 people and a series of test: memorizing words, memorizing a maze, and memorizing a complex line drawing. The researchers had trained the 33 participants with certain declarative memory tasks. 16 of them took the 45-minute nap or non-REM nap and the 17 had to stay awake and watch a movie. On that same day, all the participants took the tests.

What Tucker’s team found wast that the three different declarative memory tasks, those that took a nap improved their performance compared to the one’s who stayed awake. But, a daytime nap would only work for people that learned their task well.

According to Tucker, “The nap group performed better overall than the awake group, but the difference wasn’t significant. However, when we looked at individual performance during training, we found those who did better during training benefited from napping.”

Tucker also said, “There is a likely basic level of learning that has to be attained before sleep can have an impact on performance.” And according to their study, the participants seem to perform well on one task, but not all of the three tasks.

He also said, “There is a lot of data starting to come in that there are benefits from naps on memory.” So, Tucker thinks that by taking a nap and if one has that motivation to learn what he studies, then napping may help improve the declarative memory.

According to Sara Mednick, “This paper is further evidence of how sleep, specifically naps, can be a tool for memory consolidation. Interestingly, the data shows that not all subjects utilize sleep for consolidation to a similar extent.”
Sara Mednick is an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego’s Laboratory of Sleep and Behavioral Nueroscience.
The paper was published on the journal Sleep’s February 1, 2008 issue.

Lifestyle for Better Memory memory, sleep

Researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts released results this month that might interest you.  So let me see if I can walk you through their study.

Their study seemed to have a really small sample size – only 19 women.  The women had the same body-mass index (BMI).  Another “flaw” – the study was only measured over 3 weeks.

About half the women went on a week of no-carb, the other half on low-carb.  They found that the no-carb group performed worse on short-term memory tests (such as remembering number sequences).  But introducing even 5 grams of carbs a day reversed the decline.

Here’s the explanation.  The brain uses glucose (sugar) as it’s main fuel.  Since your body breaks carbohydrates into sugars like glucose, your brain won’t get what it needs without carbs.  That makes logical sense, but to be honest, I’m not sure this study “proves” it.

What you want, if you are trying to go low carb, is to trigger ketosis (where your body burns fat for fuel).   But don’t cut out all carbs.

Bottom Line: Low carb diets, especially in the initial stages where they are basically “no carb” diets, end up starving your brain.  So the key is you need some carbs, even in a low-carb diet.

Memory and Food carbs, memory, memory food

Our brain is a vital organ to our visual processing, auditory processing, motor control, sensation and learning. Since our brain is the powerhouse of all that we see, do, think and feel, it is imperative to properly feed and nurture it. For instance, our brain is like a computer. The hard drive contains all the vital information we need to function, if we don’t feed it correctly, then our bodies will shut down, such as a computer will shutdown if the hard drive is not working.

Additionally, if the hard disk crashes it is very difficult to recover that information, and in most cases it cannot be recovered. If we don’t properly feed out brains and bodies with good food, exercise as well as reducing stress, then we can experience highs and lows which could be detrimental to a person’s health.

Your mind and body work together—if you nourish them both properly, then they can continue to work together. Such activities as jogging or puzzles can help to keep your body and mind sharp, along with the proper foods to sustain your energy.

When a person, regardless of age has the right mix of nutrition and exercise, this will help both their physical and mental well being. One of the ways in which to do this is by having a diet that is rich in Omega-3 fat, which is not only good for the heart, but also for the brain in helping the memory.

Eliminating meals or not getting enough sleep also affects both our brain and energy level. For instance, lack of food for the brain and body and lead to a foggy brain, attention problems, or just plain crankiness. If you’re not able to ingest a healthy diet on a regular basis, then it may be a good idea to supplement your diet with vitamins, such as zinc, folic acid or other essential nutrients for the brain. Of course, regular exercise helps the body to maintain a healthy appetite, which helps your overall health.

Incorporating too much sugar, fat, or carbohydrates will also affect your health as well as your mental alertness. Ensure that your cholesterol levels and blood pressure is within normal range. This keeps the blood flowing through the arteries—blockages could lead to a heart attack or a stroke. In essence, eat the right mix of foods and engage in daily exercise, together with plenty of rest and relaxation and your mind, body and spirit will certainly be more aligned and reward you for it.

Lifestyle for Better Memory brain food, memory