Jim Kwik explains how chronic poor sleep drives cognitive decline and Alzheimer's risk. Deep sleep lets your brain's glymphatic system clear toxins. REM sleep turns daily experiences into long-term memories. Quality matters more than just hours.
Chronic poor sleep really is a major factor in cognitive decline and risk to diseases like Alzheimer's. The key is which part of sleep is critical. We talk about 7, 8 hours of sleep, but truly that's just because every person's different and everyone has a different need as far as length, because you're trying to achieve optimal REM sleep and deep sleep. Those slow wave sleep patterns, that is when you're detoxing the brain. That is when basically all the goodness happens, where your glymphatic system is eliminating basically all the toxins in the brain. very necessary part. That's why sleep is absolutely necessary. But also in that REM sleep is where you're filing away and storing those memories, those experiences of your day. It's in those sleep cycles and that sleep cycle, REM sleep, when you're filing this away and it becomes part of your long-term memory. Brain health, really the foundation to it starts with sleep.
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