Health
Sleep could help erase bad memories, study finds: ‘Therapy for our emotions’
Sleep has been shown to have a long list of physical and mental health benefits, and now a new study suggests it could also help to “erase” bad memories.
That’s according to researchers from the University of Hong Kong, who implemented a procedure called “targeted memory reactivation” (TMR) to reactivate positive memories and weaken painful ones during sleep.
“Recollecting painful or traumatic experiences can be deeply troubling,” the researchers wrote in the findings, which were published in the journal PNAS. “Sleep may offer an opportunity to reduce such suffering.”
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“We developed a procedure to weaken older aversive memories by reactivating newer positive memories during sleep.”
A new study suggests that sleep could help to “erase” bad memories. (iStock)
In the study, a total of 37 participants were shown 48 “nonsense words,” each paired with a different unpleasant image, before going to sleep for the night.
The next evening, they were shown half of the words paired with positive images from four categories: animals, babies, people and scenes.
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During the following “non-rapid-eye-movement” sleep, the researchers introduced “auditory memory cues.”
When the participants woke, they had less memory of the negative images and stronger memory of the positive ones.
“Recollecting painful or traumatic experiences can be deeply troubling,” the researchers wrote. “Sleep may offer an opportunity to reduce such suffering.” (iStock)
“Our results were aligned with recent TMR research showing that episodic forgetting could be induced via reactivating interfering memories during sleep,” the researchers wrote in the study.
“Going beyond prior research on neutral memories, our results suggest that TMR preferentially reactivated recently acquired positive memories and weakened older aversive memories, thus altering the fate of emotional experiences.”
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Dr. Earnest Lee Murray, a board-certified neurologist at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson, Tennessee, noted that TMR has been a method for treating PTSD and other aversive (bad) memories.
“This is done by combining sensory cues with therapeutic interventions and then re-presenting these cues during specific sleep phases,” Murray, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
Many patients have reported improvements in mood and anxiety when sleep was improved, a sleep doctor said. (iStock)
This treatment has been shown to reduce the emotional impact of aversive memories, the neurologist added.
“This study not only shows a suppression or a weakening of aversive memory, but does so by reactivating newer positive memories while the patient is asleep,” Murray said. “This will open the door for additional research in ways to weaken traumatic or other bad memories.”
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In addition to psychotherapies, medications are sometimes used to suppress nightmares or other aversive memories, he noted.
“This study continues to show ways to treat these conditions without the use of medications, which oftentimes are fraught with adverse side effects.”
“This study continues to show ways to treat these conditions without the use of medications, which oftentimes are fraught with adverse side effects,” a sleep doctor said. (iStock)
Alex Dimitriu, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and sleep medicine doctor and founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine in California, was also not involved in the study, but said it is “fascinating” in what it reveals about how the brain processes memories during sleep.
“Our brains are unpacking, processing and repacking emotions in our sleep,” he told Fox News Digital. “I had suspected this before, and have often told my patients that sleep is like therapy for our emotions.”
Many of the doctor’s patients have reported improvements in mood and anxiety when sleep was improved.
“There has been evidence that in REM (dream sleep) in particular, a lot of emotional processing and rehearsal occurs,” Dimitriu said. “In this study, however, the intervention was in non-REM sleep, which shows that emotions are processed in other sleep phases as well.”
The process of using TMR to suppress negative emotions and fortify positive memories could have a “tremendous impact” on people with depression or trauma, an expert said. (iStock)
The process of using TMR to suppress negative emotions and fortify positive memories could have a “tremendous impact” on people with depression or trauma, the expert said.
“I am excited to see further research into this area, which essentially means we can learn and change while we are asleep.”
Potential limitations
The study did have some limitations, the researchers noted.
“Our brains are unpacking, processing and repacking emotions in our sleep.”
“First, although our experiment aims to weaken aversive memories, the lab-induced emotional experiences of viewing aversive/positive images may not mimic typical traumatic experiences,” they wrote.
It can also be difficult to find positive components within some highly traumatic experiences, they noted.
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“Future research should explore ways to introduce positive interfering memories, such as positive autobiographical memories or therapy-related memories, to effectively weaken real-life trauma memories,” the researchers stated.
“The role of REM sleep in modulating emotional memories shall be further investigated,” the study authors wrote. (iStock)
“Second, the role of REM sleep in modulating emotional memories shall be further investigated.”
The study received ethical approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Hong Kong.
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Funders included the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, along with other grants.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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