EMOTIONAL
HEALTH, MEMORY,
ATTENTION AND
SLEEP PATTERN
THEORETICAL PART
INTRODUCTION
Relationships between emotional health,
cognitive function and rest
Emotions and health
Memory and attention
Sleep pattern and rest
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Emotions and Health
Emotional Health and its importance
Objectives of Emotional Health
Emotional control and coping strategies
Patterns and recommendations
Memory
Functions of Memory
Stages of the memorising process
Attention
Influence of attention on memory
Individual characteristics of attention
Factors impacting on attention
Types of attention
Benefits of increased attention
Sleep and rest in healthy aging
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
EMOTIONS AND HEALTH
Immune System
FOUNDATIONS Relationships btw… Endocrine System MIND
Nervous System
► Emotional inhibition provokes disorders and diseases.
► Anxiety is an element which aggravates disease.
► Optimism increases the response of the immune system.
► Anger (retained or expressed) (Permanent hostility) as a heart risk element.
► Depression after a heart attack multiplies the risk of complications in the
following year.
► Connection between stress (feeling of impotence/helplessness) and risk of
developing high-blood pressure.
► Cicatrisation speed decreases in stressful situations.
► Depression in young individuals is a risk factor for later hypertension.
► Sadness and anxiety affect the immune system.
► Social support in seropositive patients improves their vital signs.
EMOTIONS EXERT AN INFLUENCE ON BIOCHEMICAL REGULATION
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
The people who are EMOTIONALLY Their thoughts
healthy have control over… Their feelings
Their behaviours
How to achieve it
They feel well
with themselves
LEARNING They have good
interpersonal
Living experience Training relationships
I. PERCEPTION, EXPRESSION AND
ASSESSMENT OF EMOTIONS
II. EMOTIONS AT THE SERVICE OF
THINKING
III. UNDERSTANDING OF EMOTIONS
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
IV. REGULATION – MANAGEMENT OF
EMOTIONS
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
► FLOW
What for? ► HUMOUR
► INTELLIGENT OPTIMISM
► RESILIENCE
► ‘GAUDIBILITY’ (ENJOYMENT)
► ….
POSITIVE EMOTIONAL STATES
Physical health improvement
Prevention of disease risks
Protection against depression
Handling anxiety
Strengthening the self-immune
system
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
OBJECTIVES
• Perceiving emotional health as a lifestyle that can be developed through
knowledge and coping strategies.
• Identifying the basic emotional phenomena (emotions, feelings and
states of mind).
• Developing healthy emotional habits.
• Applying the knowledge acquired to a healthy daily life (in the intra- and
interpersonal context).
EMOTIONAL CONTROL:
TO PREVAIL PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL
ALTERATIONS
People with more emotional intelligence (EI) have a better well-
being.
Anxiety and depression are reduced in people with more EI.
(Davis,Stankov y Roberts 1998)
1) Perceiving, feeling and being aware of our emotional
Capacities
state, without being overwhelmed or threatened by it.
and
strategies to 2) Selecting the emotional thoughts to which attention is
develop going to be paid with a view to act rationally.
3) Controlling the start of emotional alterations.
4) Tolerating frustration.
5) Showing serene attitudes before stress-inducing
situations.
6) Ensuring self-motivation to achieve feasible objectives,
regulating the state of mind
POSITIVE EMOTIONAL
COPING STRATEGIES
1. Search for alternatives 9. Religion
2. Emotional control 10. Emotional expression
3. Positive re-evaluation 11. Positive visualisation
4. Search for social support 12. Emotional writing
5. Search for professional support 13. Behavioral avoidance
6. Humour 14. Cognitive avoidance
7. Suppression of distracting 15. Holding back coping
activities 16. Waiting
8. Personal development 17. Mental disconnection
Characteristics of coping strategies
Behavioural answers
Cognitive answers
Psyco-physiological answers
IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING A
GOOD COGNITIVE FUNCTION FOR
HEALTHY AGEING
Some capacities suffer a continuous decline in the old age (Cabeza,
2001; Corral and Pardo, 2007)
The basic cognitive capacities which form the basis of most types of
learning can be modified (Flavell, 1976; Feuerstein, 1980 and 1991).
Slowing down the deterioration of seniors’ cognitive capacities is a
learning-for-health task that influences emotional well-being and
favours health and quality of life among seniors.
Memory and attention are essential for everyday life.
Encouraging rest and refreshing sleep are key factors in this task.
MEMORY
Definition: Memory is the human capacity to store and retrieve
information.
Functions of memory: Without it, we would be unable to cope in daily
life because it takes care of:
Seeing
Hearing
Thinking
Speaking
What else can be done?
STAGES OF THE
MEMORISING PROCESS
RECORDING STAGE
When information enters the brain; it is the entrance door through
which information accesses our conscience.
The intervening processes are:
Attention
Concentration
Perception
STAGES OF THE
MEMORISING PROCESS
CONSOLIDATION STAGE
We set in motion processes meant to consolidate or store information.
The intervening processes are:
Association of new/old information
Categorisation
Integration into previous information
Memory is emotionally charged
etc….
STAGES OF THE
MEMORISING PROCESS
RECALL STAGE
When the stored information is retrieved
The intervening processes are:
Situational references
Evocation
Retrieval keys
etc…
ATTENTION
Definition:
“A system of limited capacity which performs information selection
operations, the availability or alert state of which fluctuates
considerably” (De Vega, 1993).
“Study of an individual’s capacities and limitations for the selection and
processing of sensorial information about the environment” (Jahnke and
Nowaczyk, 1998)
“It is a conscious attitude aimed at the observation of a thing” (Diccionario
de Psicología, F Dorsch)
ATTENTION
The importance of memory processes:
It especially influences the recording stage. Therefore, it is one of the
determining factors in the memory process.
Lack of attention prevents information from being registered, thus
hindering consolidation and recall.
ATTENTION
Individual characteristics of attention:
Capacity: Extent to which the organism can pay attention to several
tasks or processes simultaneously.
Attention-Conscience Connection: The extent to which the
information to which we pay attention gets to our conscience.
Attentional filters: Ability to fix our attention before a number of
predetermined stimuli.
ATTENTION
Factors impacting on attention:
Overall psychological condition: it defines our state of mind
(worried, anxious, depressed…).
Activation level: how we are physically speaking (tired, awake...).
Environment: it defines the place where we find ourselves (there is
a lot of noise or very little noise).
Motivation: it determines the degree of involvement in focalisation.
Habituation and fatigue: With the passing of time, attention
decreases naturally. We cannot pay attention to something
constantly without getting tired.
ATTENTION
Types of attention:
Selective attention: a process which gives priority to some piece of
information over another.
Sustained attention: Persistence over time in the priority of
observation for a piece of information.
Orientation reflex: Interest in the new information that is presented to
us.
ATTENTION
Benefits of increased attention for our daily activities:
An increase in our capacity to remember, which implies an
improved self-esteem and self-efficacy levels because we have
more confidence in our memory.
An increase in the arrival of information from the world that
surrounds us, which implies a stronger commitment to life because
individuals are more aware of it.
REST AND SLEEP WITHIN THE
HEALTHY AGEING STRATEGY
Sleep: it is the state of uniform rest of an organism as opposed to the state
of wakefulness.
Insomnia: Chronic absence of the ability required to be able to start or
maintain sleep.
SLEEP PHASES
REM
Wakefulness
W
Phase I a
k
e
Phase II f
u
Phase III l
n
e
Phase IV s
s
Hour
REST AND SLEEP WITHIN THE
HEALTHY AGEING STRATEGY
Sleep serves to refresh organisms after the wear suffered during
the wakefulness period.
Its main objective is neurone restoration through the system of
neurotrophins which promote neurone survival and restoration.
Sleep maintains and reorganises neural circuits, including the
neuroformation of synapses that permit to modify the existing
neural networks due to the effect of experience.
All this gives rise to adequate brain functioning and
environmnental adaptation.
(Montes Rodríguez et al., Revista de Neurología. 2006)
CORTISOL CONNECTION
There is a relationship between the
subjective quality of sleep and CORTISOL
cortisol levels. A low quality
correlates with high cortisol rates.
(Maldonado et al.C.Med.Psicosom.2004)
REST AND SLEEP WITHIN THE
HEALTHY AGEING STRATEGY
An abnormal cortisol secretion can lead the brain to increase its
activity in two relevant areas:
The hippocampus and the amygdala.
In the case of the hippocampus, it can cause atrophy and permanent
damage.
The hippocampus and the amygdala are crucial not only in stressful
situations (fear, emotions, immunity) but also for their influence on
superior functions of the brain such as memory.
(Fraser. 2007)
HIPPOCAMPUS AND MEMORY
HIPPOCAMPUS IN 3D
The hippocampus seems to be
involved in the formation of
memory, not in its storage.
It seems to play an essential role in
the formation of new memories
associated to autobiographical
experience or memory.
HIPPOCAMPUS AND MEMORY
Angle circumvolution
The hippocampus forms part of Callused body
a more complex system, that of Third
ventricle
the medial temporal lobe which
grasps declarative memory
(different memories which can
be invoked explicitly, like
semantic memory, characterised
by the storage of specific data
such as proper names)
Lateral ventricles
Hippocampus Cerebellum
Fourth ventricle
HIPPOCAMPUS AND MEMORY
The hippocampus stops having a crucial role
in the passage from the memory formation
period to the memory consolidation period.
Damaging the hippocampus causes
difficulties in the formation of new memories
and the processing of spatial information.
(O´Kane et al. Hippocampus. 2004)
SLEEP: HIPPOCAMPUS-CEREBRAL
CORTEX CONNECTION
Basic movements
Precise movements
CONSOLIDATION Central fissure
Formix Formix
Emotions, conduct Motor cortex
Knowledge, memory
Frontal lobe Parietal lobe
Hippocampus
Somatosensorial
cortex
Language Visual recognition
(Broca’s area)
Occipital lobe
Hearing
Vision
NEURAL
Smell
Amygdala
NETWORKS Muscle and
balance
Lateral fissure coordination
Amygdalae
Temporal lobe
Hippocampus
LATERAL VENTRAL Language (Wernicke’s area)
HIPPOCAMPUS AND EMOTIONS
Emotional memories can be formed instantaneously,
partly because the hippocampus acts comparing the outer
world as it is collected by sensorial systems with the
representation that the brain has of that same world.
A sudden change in a situation causes the hippocampus
and amygdala to start working together to build
conscious memories of the events. (Fraser. 2007)
CORTISOL INCREASE AND MEMORY
GLUCOCORTICOID CASCADE
CEREBRAL
CORTEX
The glucocorticoid cascade HYPOTHALAMUS
hypothesis suggests a significant
relationship between the cumulative
exposure to high levels of these
substances (such as cortisol) and the HYPOPHYSIS
deterioration in the functioning of
memory due to atrophy of the
hippocampus, an area that is ADRENAL GLAND
essential for explicit memory as a
conscious or voluntary recollection of
previous information. GLUCOCORTICOIDS
(Csernansky et al. Am.J. Psy.2006)
(CORTISOL)
REST AND SLEEP WITHIN THE
HEALTHY AGEING STRATEGY
Both the increase in the activity of the hypothalamus
adrenal hypophysary axis and the lack of sleep cause the
same effect through the glucocorticoid cascade.
Therefore, lack of sleep, the same as emotional tension,
impacts similarly on cognitive deterioration with effects
such as the loss of certain types of memory and
emotional health problems (among others).
(Lupien et al. Psychoneuroendocrinology.2005)
CORTISOL CONNECTION
IN SENIORS
In elderly people, cognitive
deterioration is produced both by
the long-term exposure to cortisol
values and by current high levels,
thus confirming the hypotheses of
memory deterioration due to
chronic exposure to these
glucocorticoid rates.
REST AND SLEEP WITHIN THE
HEALTHY AGEING STRATEGY
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reorganización de los circuitos neuronales: una aproximación a las
funciones del sueño. Revista de neurología, ISSN 0210-0010. Vol. 43, No. 7,
pp. 409-415. 2006
Maldonado, E.F.; Carranque, G. C. Med. Psicosom. No. 69/70. pp. 9-13. 2004
Lupien S.; Fiocco A.; Wan N. et al. Stress Hormones and Human Memory
Function across the lifespan. Psychoneuroendocrinology 30(3): 225-242.
2005
Carskadon M. A;Brown E. D;Dement WC Sleep fragmentation in the elderly:
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Greene G. (2008). Review of “Insomniac”. N.Engl.J.Med 359:13.1412-13
September 2008.
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