Man awake stressed in bed trying to sleep

Memory Loss and Sleep Loss

An Experiment

Have you ever wanted to know what it felt like to purposely lose your memory?  Me either, but, since research is what this Sleep Well company is all about (research in the name of helping our customers get the best sleep, support, and mattress ever) I decided to experiment on myself and see what sleep loss does to memory retention. 

The experiment is part of an upcoming presentation Sleep Well is doing for the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce.  Every year we like to present to our local community the importance of sleep and the many facets of buying a new sleep system.  It’s a great time to share with people the things we’ve learned and how we can help them out.  This year we decided to speak on the importance of sleep to your brain and memory.  Me being me, I chose to experiment on myself to see what changes occur over a short period of sleep loss.  

I already know my weakest link when I lose sleep; for me, it is memory of numbers.  Knowing this I chose to form a twice a day memory test consisting of 6 digits in a particular order.  The experiment is constructed as formally as I know how, which is not saying much, but what I mean by that is that I have a control day (day 1 with nothing irregular), and period of three days with differing amounts of sleep loss. I video blog myself in the mornings talking about how I feel and if there were any irregular effects on anything other than memory.  Then at noon and 4 pm, I video myself recalling the number patterns while my wife is letting me know if the numbers are correct or not.  

Some of you may wonder why I would think that a 4-day experiment is enough to get any changes in memory.  I beg to differ from that opinion.  I believe your brain begins to suffer the first day of sleep loss and only gets worse as you continue the loss.  

As the week goes on, I will be collecting information on what exactly is happening to my brain right now.  I would do it now, but since it is day three and was the first 4 hour sleep period, I do not think research is something I could be very thorough with right now.  For now, watch the videos below to see the experiment in progress.  

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I hope you find this experiment valuable to you.  I hope that this somehow shows you, the regular person with no real reason to think of sleep daily, that sleep is just as important as your diet to your health.  If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.  I will be updating the blog with the outcomes and research at the end of the four days. 

Remember, when you Sleep Well, you Live Well.

About the author:

Javier is the owner of Sleep Well, professionally trained sleep stores, specializing in specific mattresses for specific needs. He lives to give. He is an active member of his community and church. His hard work and efforts pay off for him when he can help others, and give to efforts for the betterment of others.
His spare time is spent with his beautiful wife, Gretchen. They are craft beer hobbyists who enjoy making their own beers, visiting small breweries, and making new friends. Their lives revolve around church, family, exercising, four great dogs, and keeping up with their home in Alamogordo NM.