We have long known that a poor night’s sleep will impair your memory and concentration, but in recent times we’ve had ever-increasing evidence that many Sleep Disorders are a major contributor. Sleep deprivation, poor sleep, and constantly-disrupted sleep will impair your skills the next day.
A recent article (Varga et al, J Neurosci. 2014) looked at one of the most common sleep disorders and it’s effects on how your brain functions.
Those with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) were found to have poorer memory and spatial navigation… compared to when they had treatment for their OSA. Their cognition was slower, and memory recall was slower.
Consulting with our Adelaide sleep doctors, we’ve learnt that this is not surprising, given that :
• OSA is usually much worse in REM sleep
• OSA can inherently reduce your REM sleep
• OSA can dramatically reduce your sleep efficiency
• Recurrent OSA can starve your brain of oxygen throughout the night
• Constant pauses in breathing will keep waking you up in the night
• Disrupted sleep will cause memory loss, poor concentration
When you translate this to the real world, this means mistakes and reduced productivity during the day, lapses in concentration during time-critical events, and recurrent micro-sleeps as you try and catch up on lost sleep.
“My concentration and ‘snappiness’ isn’t what it used to be”
“I keep forgetting my keys and people’s names”
“I need to write everything down now”
Don’t let poor sleep deprive you of the important things in life, call us now.
