Sleep Techniques Could Help Erase Bad Memories, Study Says

Sleep has been shown to have a long list of physical and mental health benefits, and now a new study suggests it might also help “erase” bad memories.

This is according to researchers from the University of Hong Kong, who implemented a procedure called “directed memory reactivation” (TMR) to reactivate positive memories and weaken painful ones. during sleep.

“Remembering 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 that 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 “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 at night.

The next night, they were shown half of the words along 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 up, they had fewer memories of the negative images and more memories of the positive ones.

“Recalling painful or traumatic experiences can be deeply troubling,” the researchers wrote. “Sleep may offer an opportunity to reduce that suffering.” (iStock)

“Our results were aligned with recent TMR research showing that episodic forgetting could be induced by reactivating interfering memories during sleep,” the researchers wrote in the study.

“Beyond previous research on neutral memories, our results suggest that TMR preferentially reactivates recently acquired positive memories and weakens older aversive memories, thus altering the fate of emotional experiences“.

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Dr. Earnest Lee Murray, a certified neurologist of Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson, Tennessee, noted that TMR has been a method of treating post-traumatic stress disorder and other aversive (bad) memories.

“This is done by combining sensory cues with therapeutic interventions and then enacting these cues during specific phases of sleep,” Murray, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.

Many patients have reported improvements in mood and anxiety when they improve sleep, one 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 weakening of the aversive memory, but it does so by reactivating new positive memories while the patient sleeps,” Murray said. “This will open the door to additional research 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 medicationswhich are often fraught with adverse side effects.

“This study continues to show ways to treat these conditions without the use of medications, which are often plagued by adverse side effects,” said one sleep doctor. (iStock)

Alex Dimitriu, MD, a certified psychiatrist and sleep medicine physician and founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine in California, was also not involved in the study, but said it is “fascinating” for what it reveals about how the brain processes memories during sleep.

“Our brains are unpacking, processing and repackaging emotions while we sleep,” he told Fox News Digital. “I had suspected it before and have often told my patients that sleep is like therapy for our emotions.”

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Many of the doctor’s patients have reported improvements in mood and anxiety when sleep 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 performed in non-REM sleep, demonstrating that emotions are also processed in other phases of sleep.”

The process of using TMR to suppress negative emotions and strengthen positive memories could have a “tremendous impact” on people with depression or trauma, an expert has said. (iStock)

The process of using TMR to suppress negative emotions and strengthen positive memories could have a “tremendous impact” on people with depression or traumasaid the expert.

“I’m excited to see more research in this area, which essentially means we can learn and change while we sleep.”

Potential limitations

The study had some limitations, the researchers noted.

“Our brains unpack, process and repackage emotions while we sleep.”

“First, although our experiment aims to weaken aversive memories, the emotional experiences induced in the laboratory by viewing aversive/positive images may not mimic typical traumatic experiences,” they wrote.

It can also be difficult to find positive components in some highly traumatic experiences, they noted.

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“Future research should explore ways to introduce interfering positive memories, such as positive autobiographical memories or therapy-related memories, to effectively weaken real-life traumatic memories,” the researchers said.

“The role of REM sleep in modulating emotional memories should be further investigated,” the study authors wrote. (iStock)

“Second, the role of REM sleep in modulating emotional memories will 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 investigators for comment.