Remembering to forget
by Lance | Articles, Memory, Sleep
Scientists have long known that memories are consolidated during sleep.
This long term memory formation happens during the non REM sleep phases of our sleep. The same neural pathways activated during sleep that was activated during the activity or event. The memory is replayed during sleep and either forgotten or remembered long term.
Why some are chosen to be forgotten is still unclear but it seems the brain is clever in deciding what is important and useful and what is unimportant and unuseful to remember the next day.
Recent research now shows that there is a difference in the brainwaves present during a successful memory formation and one that is forgotten and that these two types of brainwaves compete with each other in this process.
And by manipulating the type of brainwave present during sleep scientists have been able to make memories (like how to complete a specific learned task) either be remembered or forgotten the next day.
This opens the doorway for potentially helping people learn or helping those with things they need to forget (like with PTSD) to get faster and more predictable results.
The evidence shows that if Delta waves (0.5-4Hz approx) are present during a memory replay then the memory is forgotten. And if slow waves, which I will label as epsilon (0-0.5Hz) and characterised by less than 1Hz, are present then the memory is consolidated in long term memory and remembered.
Also, present during this process and already understood by scientists are brief sleep spindles of higher frequency (High Beta and Gamma).
This all highlights the importance of deep sleep and how certain drugs (see the article called ‘how can I sleep better‘ including sleeping pills can actually interrupt this deep phase of sleep and make learning or remembering harder.
As users of PandoraStar of course, we have access to all these frequencies at will and can encourage this type of deep brainwave state.
So for example, using a very slow brainwave program after a busy day mentally and/or physically will help consolidate learnings and make the next day doing the same task easier.
And this, of course, is how the human body/mind adapts and grows.
