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While her daughter was preschooler, Rebecca Spencer experienced something that many parents and guardians know: the power of a nap.
Without a nap, her daughter was dizzy, grumpy, or both at the same time. 19659002] Spencer, a sleep neuroscientist at the University of Mbadachusetts in Amherst, United States, wanted to find out what lies behind this anecdotal experience.
"Many people discover that a child without a nap is emotionally deregulated," he says. "This led us to ask ourselves a question:" Do naps really help to deal with emotions? "
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Scientific research has already shown that in general, the dream helps us to understand emotions. In fact, it plays a key role in coding the information extracted from the day's experiences, so it's essential to preserve the memories.
Emotional memories are unique because of the way they activate the amygdala. : The Emotional Core of the Brain
"The activation of the amygdala is what allows you to remember the day of your wedding and your parents' funeral more than any other day of work", has said Spencer.
The body of the amygdala attributes to these memories a meaning, so that they are treated longer during sleep and are reiterated more than other trivial memories.
As a result, emotionally significant memories are easier to retrieve in the future
Researchers discover sleep laboratories how to take a nap can even improve the we are the emotional experiences.
But having an influence on the way memories are treated, the dream can also change their power.
"The dream is particularly effective for transforming emotional memory," explains Elaina. Bolinger, specialist of emotion and sleep at the University of Tuebingen, Germany
In a recent study, Bolinger and his colleagues showed both negative and neutral images to children of 8 at the age of 11. The children showed their emotional reaction by choosing simple drawings representing people.
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Later, some children slept and some did not. The researchers controlled the physiology of their brains through electrodes in the next room.
The next morning, the children saw the same pictures, as well as new ones. And compared to the children who stayed awake, the children who had slept controlled their emotional responses better.
This research suggests that sleep helps to crystallize emotional information and control what we feel. And this effect occurs quickly.
Sleep helps children control their emotional responses.
"Much of the current research indicates that a single night's sleep is useful," Bolinger says. "It's useful for the treatment of memories, but also for emotional regulation in general."
But all sleep is not the same.
Types of Sleep
Sleep with rapid gaze movement badociated with emotional memories, and having more REM sleep allows people to better evaluate each other's intentions and to remember emotional stories
According to one theory , the stress hormone, norepinephrine, would be absent during slow sleep. Temporarily released from this hormone, the brain can process memories without stress.
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Simon Durrant, head of the Sleep and Cognition Laboratory at the University of Lincoln, England, focuses on another aspect.
The prefrontal cortex is the most developed part of the brain: this is where, says Durrant, "the human impulse to keep calm and not react immediately to things"
On waking, it is is the part that keeps the body of the amygdala under control and, therefore, the emotions. This relationship is reduced during sleep
"In a sense, emotion is endemic during REM sleep."
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But Spencer believes that non-REM sleep also plays an important role. Slow Sleep (SWS) is the first phase of sleep that consolidates memories and is particularly effective for treating neutral memories.
Spencer's research suggests that the amount of SWS activity during sleep affects how emotional memories are transformed.
Naps consist mainly of non-REM sleep. And a recent article co-written by Spencer seems to be the first to show that naps, not just nighttime sleep, contribute to the treatment of emotional memory in children.
Without a nap, the children showed a bias for emotionality. While napping, they reacted in the same way to neutral stimuli and emotional stimuli.
In summary, he badures that "if they do not take a nap, children become hypersensitive to emotional stimuli" because they have not consolidated the emotional burden of the latter.
Even a sleep without sleep paradoxical helps children regulate their emotions
Spencer thinks the nap also contributes to the treatment of emotions in adults, but not in the same measure. An adult has a more mature hippocampus and, therefore, a greater ability to preserve his memories. Not sleeping does not hurt them too much
. Spencer's research on aging suggests that "we need to consolidate memories more often as we get older"
. It is interesting to note that older people tend to favor positive memories, while young adults tend to adopt negative ones.
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This may be explained by the fact that children and adolescents focus on negative experiences because they contain essential information to learn: fire hazards at the risk of accepting a drink from a stranger.
But towards the end of life, people give priority to the positive. They also have less paradoxical sleep, the type of sleep that will likely save negative memories, especially in people with depression.
Therapeutic Uses
Sleep researchers also badyze the potential of certain facets of sleep to treat sleep disorders. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
A study suggests that sleeping within 24 hours of a traumatic experience makes these memories less painful later. Sleep therapy can help people with anxiety to remember that they have eliminated their fear.
Researchers have found that REM sleep can help us process memories.
In contrast, sleep therapy, in which people are deliberately deprived of sleep, is spreading as a method of treating depression.
In some cases, insomnia may have a protective effect. Spencer points out that after a trauma, "the natural biological response under these conditions is to suffer from insomnia"
. Thus, it can sometimes be helpful for lack of REM sleep to impair the brain's ability to consolidate emotional memories.
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"There is evidence that people who sleep longer tend to be more depressed," says Durrant. The expert thinks that's because a subgroup of depressed people is restoring their negative memories during REM sleep.
"I do not think I will be able to solve this problem," he says of all the potential clinical applications of sleep and wake therapy.
But it is clear that some types of decision-making improve after sleep, partly because of the way sleep regulates all this whirlwind of feelings.
Bolinger Explain clearly: In general, "sleep helps to feel better."
In the end, the best recipe for a broken heart or a cloudy mind can be a nap.
Read the original story in English on BBC Future.
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