Sleep to Restore Memory

Strategies to Prevent and Delay Alzheimer's Disease:

1. Get pleanty of exercise
2. Eat a brain-healthy diet
3. Keep your mind active
4. Sleep regularly and restfully
5. Learn to relax
6. Protect your brain

You can download the complete plan from HELPGUIDE.org but here's the 4th strategy. Remember :) , there will be three more strategies to follow.

Prevention and delay strategy #3: Sleep to restore memory

Your brain needs regular, restful sleep to process, store, and recall information. Nightly deprivation not only leaves you cranky and tired, but according to memory experts Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Gary Small, poor sleep can significantly damage your brain and central nervous system.

These tips will help you catch your Z’s and quiet the demons that keep you awake:

• Establish a regular sleep schedule. Going to bed and getting up at the same time reinforces your natural circadian rhythms. Your brain’s clock responds to regularity, and long term disruption has been associated with heart disease, cancer risks, and cognitive problems.
• Set the mood. Reserve your bed for sleep (and sex), take a hot bath, and dim the lights. Brisk evening exercise, comfortable temperatures, and white noise machines can also signal your brain that it’s time for deep restorative sleep.
• Stop snoring, dear! Alcohol, smoking, sedating drugs, excess weight, high blood pressure, and clogged nasal passages can rock the timbers. Snoring may signal sleep apnea, a respiratory condition that threatens your heart and mind. A new study from the University of California at San Diego estimates seventy to eighty percent of Alzheimer’s patients experience sleep apnea. Cognition is frequently improved following Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) treatment, which mechanically regulates the rise and fall of blood pressure and oxygen to the brain.
• Quiet your inner chatter. When mental dialogues keep you awake, get up. Try reading or relaxing in another room for twenty minutes then hop back in. If repeating this cycle doesn’t work, check your stress levels. Your memory may depend on it.

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