Not sleeping well leads to a whole range of memory problems. During your sleep cycles is when the brain "consolidates" your memories. If you nightly sleep is too short, these memories don't form completely, leaving room for memory gaps and even false memories.

In a clever study, researchers had volunteers randomly put into an "awake all night group" or a "normal sleep group." In the morning they showed them lists of words. Then asked them to recall the words in the list. The sleep deprived people, essentially, made up more words than the well rested group. Interestingly, some of the sleep-deprived were more certain of their made-up words than the words that were actually on the list.

So if you are concerned about memory, are a student or just want to keep everything stright in your head it may be more important to sleep well than to pull an "all-nighter."

Tips for a Good Night's Sleep

The hormone melatonin is an important part of sleep chemistry. More and more studies are linking higher levels of melatonin with reduced cancer growth and risk. The more you sleep, the more melatonin your body makes.

In a recent study of prostate cancer in sleep (the first such study, really), researchers found that men who slept less than 6 hours a night had a 34% increase in their risk of prostate cancer. The more the men slept, the lower their risk with men who slept more than 9 hours of night having 50% of the risk of those sleeping less than 6 hours a night. The study had over 22,000 Japanese men enrolled between the ages of 40 and 79.

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