How Sleep Deprivation Can Affect Memory

We’re all familiar with the feeling of running on fumes after a night of little to no sleep. Sleep deprivation doesn’t just feel terrible, though: It also can hamper your ability to form and recall memories.

Even just one night of less than six hours of sleep can impair your short-term memory the next day, said Dr. Richard Castriotta, a sleep medicine specialist at Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California. Not everyone responds to sleep deprivation in the same way, but generally speaking, the longer you go without adequate rest, the greater the burden on your brain. Extreme sleep deprivation — being awake for 24 hours or more — can even make people behave as if they’re intoxicated, he said.

“If we go without sleep,” said Dr. Indira Gurubhagavatula, a sleep specialist at Penn Medicine, “we ourselves are aware that the next day we have a hard time remembering things: ‘Where did I leave my keys? What’s that person’s name?’”

As a person rests, the brain strengthens and synthesizes the connections between neurons that were formed during the previous day, which helps store memories — a process known as consolidation. Some researchers think that rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep, plays a particularly powerful role in locking in memories and helping us process emotions, Dr. Gurubhagavatula said.

“Sleep is not a passive process,” she added.

When people wake up before they are fully rested, they get less sleep overall and also may get less REM sleep, Dr. Gurubhagavatula said. They may also miss out on the last and longest period of REM sleep, which happens in the final hours of rest.

Because of that, “you might notice you can’t remember things as well,” she said. “You might be a little bit more edgy or irritable or anxious, just not in your best state.”

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