What does sleep have to do with learning?
Sleeping kitten makes many learn.
This seems to be a strange thing to put on a post categorised under Learning Skills, but bear with it. Sleep works in cycles, and you move through several of these over a night’s sleep. In each cycle there are two stages that are important:
- Deep Sleep: during deep sleep, memories from the previous day are moved from short term to long term memory. If you do not get enough sleep, these memories are lost for good. And it’s not even like you can catch up over the weekend, as by then many of you memories from earlier in the week are already gone.
- REM Sleep: this is the bit where your body is paralysed but your eyes blink rapidly, and is when you process many of the emotions from your day. If these emotions don’t get properly processed, you can wake up feeling stressed and anxious….hardly a good frame of mind for learning.
What Can I do?
Make sure that every night you are getting at least 7 1/2 hours sleep every night. Yes, I am telling you to study less and sleep more!
Make sure you go to bed relaxed, which means reading, or talking with family, or watching TV for half an hour first…anything but studying! There I go again, telling you to study less!
Want to read more?
- This is the BBC article that inspired the post: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24444634
- Harvard University’s sleep department: http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/
- WebMD: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/10-results-sleep-loss
- The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/sleep-learning_b_1719682.html