Sleep: the key for success
Brain Rules: Sleep — Felipe Riaño
Sleep may be more significant than previously thought. A correct use of your sleep can maximize your learning and productivity in a day. This is because sleep lets our body and brain repair and re-energize, among other things. Before I dive into detail, I want to answer an important question: why do we sleep? According to Medina (2008) “The brain is in a constant state of tension between cells and chemicals that try to put you to sleep and cells and chemicals that try to keep you awake”(p. 43). This tension can also be seen as a constant battle between the two kinds of cells and chemicals, (the homeostatic sleep drive and the circadian arousal system) and the longer one team controls the battlefield, the more probable is for the other team to capture it. In other words, the more you are awake, The probability for you to go to sleep is greater, and vice versa.
When you sleep, your brain doesn’t actually rest; it remains active. Your brain is often repeating what you learned that day. The chapter explains how sleep is key to learning, because we shut down from the outside world, and start spending more time on our experiences that day related to knowledge. This was proven on various experiments, but the one that captured my attention was on an exam given to a group of students. The exam had a set of mathematical problems that could be solved with a determined method, the students were not told that there was a short cut to solve the problems with an easier method. If teachers gave the students 12 hours to pass after the initial training eventually, 20% of the students would decipher the short cut. But, if the teacher gave the students proper time to sleep (7–8 hours), then 60% of the students would decipher the short cut. Basically, it demonstrates that sleep is a key component to maximize your learning.
Have you noticed that not every person can adapt to different schedules of work, school, sports, etc? According to Medina (2008), “people vary in how much sleep they need and when they prefer to get it”(p. 50) This means that sleep schedules change, and makes people classify into three different types of schedules. First, are the larks, which are people who tend to go to sleep at early hours of the afternoon, and wake up early in the morning. Owls are the complete opposite of larks, and hummingbirds, are right in the middle. Sleep schedules affect people differently. What doesn’t is a mid-day nap. One 30 minute nap can keep that intellectual strength and productivity at a high level during the rest of the day, which can bring many benefits for any organization you are working or learning from.
Sleep is key for success, not only because it keeps you alive, but because it keeps your brain functioning at its peak. This means that if you get proper sleep, it will improve your learning, productivity, attention, mood, self-control, memory, reasoning, and motor dexterity. Unfortunately, society often doesn’t allow us to sleep the time we need to be at our intellectual peak. Most workplaces nowadays demand an exaggerated work time, no space for a 30 minute nap, and very tight schedules that only benefit some people, and the result of this is less time to sleep. The consequences? Lack of innovation, problem solving, and intellectual strength. Especially now, humanity needs great thinking, not just for the world wide pandemic, but for bigger problems like global hunger, or global warming. The first step to solve a problem is to think, intellectual strength is needed. A possible solution for this problem is basically to adjust the schedules for the benefit of the people. Here’s an example: let’s say that your most productive hours of the day are between 9 AM, and 5 PM, but your job’s schedule is from 6 AM to 2 PM. If your boss decides to change your schedule, and give you the time to take a nap after lunch, you will be working the same amount of hours, at your intellectual peak of the day.
The given information describes how sleep works inside your brain, how does it affect your body, and the advantages of sleeping the correct way. If every person in the world slept his or her required hours to stay productive during the day, the world could come up with solutions in a shorter amount of time, as John Medina said “sleep well, think well.”
Citations:
Medina, John. Brain Rules: 12 Principles For Surviving And Thriving At Work, Home, And School. Seattle, WA: Pear Press, 2008. Print.