Post by Jembru on Jan 21, 2014 3:55:39 GMT
I was going to make this an article but thought I'd share it as a thread instead. If staff think it would be better as an article, it can easily be spell-checked and moved over there.
We've all done it; stayed up late cramming for an important exam, or burning the midnight oil while bent over our Japanese textbooks. Yet have you ever thought about the affect sleep, or rather, a lack of it, has on our study?
My interest in sleep is more to do with the fact that I work nights and try to reduce the negative impact of this, as much as possible. However, I've come across some interesting information that links a good nights sleep with memory.
Seemingly, it is the 'deep sleep' phase, that is the most important. This usually happens soon after drifting off, although if your sleep is poor quality, you may skip it altogether. During deep sleep, we experience something called 'sharp wave ripples (due to the pattern they form if mapped by an EEG). These waves are the result of a process where recent memories are transported from the hippocampus to the prefrontal cortex, which is where long-term memories are stored. This process is kind of a nightly 'defrag', clearing up new memory space for the day ahead. If you don't experience deep sleep, you skip this process and forget much of what you were studying through the day. It is unfortunately possible to sleep and not enter this phrase, or not stay there long enough and this can be caused by a number of factors, not least of all, staying up too late or trying to cram in more new information than your brain can process. You're apparently more likely to experience good periods of deep sleep, if you have a good, regular sleeping pattern.
You might be tempted to think that so long as you get a good quality of deep sleep, it doesn't really matter if you only sleep for a few hours. I'm not so sure this is the case though. A test on university students actually showed a 48% drop in grades, in students that frequently didn't get enough sleep. That's a massive difference, and I'm really regretting all those late nights and last minute cram sessions now. One possible reason for this affect is that sleep deprivation has an adverse effect on overall cognative performance anyway, but it also seems that other stages of sleep also contribute to the consolidation of memory.
I've looked around and it seems that 7.5 hours is the time needed for us to experience the full affects of a good nights sleep. I've decided to make more of an effort to get this as often as possible (my sleep pattern is fairly good considering my disruptive work schedule, but it could be better). Surely I'd be better off studying for just 1 hour and retaining almost everything, than studying for several hours and then not being able to process it properly. Maybe the same amount would stick, but I'd have wasted time unecessarily.
Do you already get plenty of sleep? Or do you think your memory could be boosted by a few earlier nights? Do you have any good tips that work for you, that help you to get a good night (or day
) of sleep? Maybe you have questions? I'm no neuroscientist, but I'm fairly clued up on the subject of sleep, so I could probably at least point you towards useful information.
Some interesting links in case you're interested in this topic:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_wave%E2%80%93ripple_complexes
healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory
www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/emotions-cognitive
If you have access to journals check out:
learnmem.cshlp.org/content/13/3/259.short (specifically looked at memorizing vocabulary)
www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627304005409 (this one pulls together much of the key research out there so is a good read if you can't be bothered to read dozens of papers).
We've all done it; stayed up late cramming for an important exam, or burning the midnight oil while bent over our Japanese textbooks. Yet have you ever thought about the affect sleep, or rather, a lack of it, has on our study?
My interest in sleep is more to do with the fact that I work nights and try to reduce the negative impact of this, as much as possible. However, I've come across some interesting information that links a good nights sleep with memory.
Seemingly, it is the 'deep sleep' phase, that is the most important. This usually happens soon after drifting off, although if your sleep is poor quality, you may skip it altogether. During deep sleep, we experience something called 'sharp wave ripples (due to the pattern they form if mapped by an EEG). These waves are the result of a process where recent memories are transported from the hippocampus to the prefrontal cortex, which is where long-term memories are stored. This process is kind of a nightly 'defrag', clearing up new memory space for the day ahead. If you don't experience deep sleep, you skip this process and forget much of what you were studying through the day. It is unfortunately possible to sleep and not enter this phrase, or not stay there long enough and this can be caused by a number of factors, not least of all, staying up too late or trying to cram in more new information than your brain can process. You're apparently more likely to experience good periods of deep sleep, if you have a good, regular sleeping pattern.
You might be tempted to think that so long as you get a good quality of deep sleep, it doesn't really matter if you only sleep for a few hours. I'm not so sure this is the case though. A test on university students actually showed a 48% drop in grades, in students that frequently didn't get enough sleep. That's a massive difference, and I'm really regretting all those late nights and last minute cram sessions now. One possible reason for this affect is that sleep deprivation has an adverse effect on overall cognative performance anyway, but it also seems that other stages of sleep also contribute to the consolidation of memory.
I've looked around and it seems that 7.5 hours is the time needed for us to experience the full affects of a good nights sleep. I've decided to make more of an effort to get this as often as possible (my sleep pattern is fairly good considering my disruptive work schedule, but it could be better). Surely I'd be better off studying for just 1 hour and retaining almost everything, than studying for several hours and then not being able to process it properly. Maybe the same amount would stick, but I'd have wasted time unecessarily.
Do you already get plenty of sleep? Or do you think your memory could be boosted by a few earlier nights? Do you have any good tips that work for you, that help you to get a good night (or day
) of sleep? Maybe you have questions? I'm no neuroscientist, but I'm fairly clued up on the subject of sleep, so I could probably at least point you towards useful information. Some interesting links in case you're interested in this topic:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_wave%E2%80%93ripple_complexes
healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory
www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/emotions-cognitive
If you have access to journals check out:
learnmem.cshlp.org/content/13/3/259.short (specifically looked at memorizing vocabulary)
www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627304005409 (this one pulls together much of the key research out there so is a good read if you can't be bothered to read dozens of papers).
