deep sleep: Sleep is important for alertness and for preparing the human brain to encode new information. However, ambient light, such as outside streetlight shining through your window, can affect the structure and timing of sleep.
The study, published in the journal Sleep, showed that wearing an eye mask reduced exposure to light during a night’s sleep and improved memory and alertness.
“Our findings suggest that wearing an eye mask during overnight sleep may improve episodic encoding and alertness the next day,” wrote Viviana Greco, from the School of Psychology at Cardiff University, along with other researchers in the paper.
To understand how sleep masks help, the team conducted two experiments.
In the first experiment, 94 people aged 18-35 wore an eye mask at bedtime every night for a week and were in a control condition in which light was not blocked for another week. Five accommodation nights were followed by a cognitive battery on the sixth and seventh days.
Also Read: High Blood Sugar Due To Poor Sleep? Better Sleep Tips, Control Diabetes
This revealed better episodic encoding and improved alertness when using the mask, the researchers said.
In the second experiment, 35 people in the same age group used a wearable device to monitor sleep, with and without a mask.
This replicated the encoding advantage and showed that it was predicted by the time spent in slow-wave sleep.
In addition, memory benefits were predicted by the time spent in slow-wave sleep while wearing the mask.
Also Read: Sleeping Beauty: 10 Tips And Home Remedies For Better Sleep
This suggests that wearing an eye mask during sleep is an effective, cost-effective and non-invasive behavior that may benefit cognitive function and produce measurable effects on everyday life, the researchers said.