Since becoming a mother I’ve become too aware of why sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Night after night of broken sleep really wears you down. The world seems fuzzy. Your brain feels fuzzy. Which is my general excuse for not updating this blog as often as I should.

I was also forewarned that I wouldn’t regain all the brain cells that I lost during pregnancy. My mind is definitely much improved, but not back to normal (hmmm, reminds me of the state of my body).

All scientists like a unified theory, so I was pleased to read the article (linked above) from New Scientist. Lack of sleep, it seems, causes memory loss. So once my daughter is sleeping through the night all should be well.

New Scientist likes to add a dissenting voice to the end of its news articles, such as:

However, Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen of the University of Helsinki in Finland says that may be going too far, as the 72 hours of sleep deprivation experienced by the rats is exceptionally long, equivalent to several days in humans. Sleep deprivation can damage memory, but only “in extreme cases”, she believes.

Of course, all that proves is that motherhood is an “extreme case”.