Just One Bad Night of Sleep Can Be Truly Frightening
Lack of sleep disrupts the brain’s ability to deal with shocking, fearful experiences
Sleeping less than the recommended seven hours or so for adults ups the chances over time of several physical and mental health problems, from heart disease and Type 2 diabetes to Alzheimer’s disease. Even a single bad night of sleep can result in poor memory consolidation, slower reaction times and crankiness the next day, and even a greater sensitivity to pain.
Just one night with too little sleep also messes with the brain’s ability to clear out fearful memories, which can raise the risk of anxiety and even post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study finds.
Hearty volunteers for the research agreed not only to lose some sleep but to be zapped by electricity.
The volunteers were divided into three groups: normal sleep, half a night’s sleep, and no sleep. The next morning, each person was shown a series of three colors, while their brains were being imaged. Two of the colors came with mild electric shocks. After that, they were shown one of the “shocking” colors again, but without getting shocked. That was supposed to condition them that this color was safe now.
