We may all have this experience:When we do our homework at night, we could not solve a difficult math problem, But when we wake up the next morning, our mind become clearer which help us to solve the problem. What happened during the time when we fall asleep? The same thing also happened on me. I have a little procrastination. I used to putting off things which I reluctant to do but always found it was done much better than I expected after several days. For instance, I had to write an extend definition to explain a concept I learnt not very well, and I did not want to finish it until the night before deadline.During these days I did not learn anything about this concept, but when I wrote my essay, I seemed to master this concept well, at least much better than several days ago when I first learn it. Why would it happen even though I did not learn it at all? Did my memory and understanding strength during sleeping time?
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To answer the question we have to learn how our brains work during sleep.People usually have 5 stages of sleep. As National Institutes of Health conveys, during stage 1-3 you are in Non-REM sleep, after you have gone through all three stages, you are into a deep sleep and begin the REM sleep. Actually brains work more active in this period which is called REM, rapid eye movement sleep,which you may have a intense dream.There are two stages in REM sleep,the later one will be much longer and memory will have a great improvement especially in this stage, which usually happens 90 minutes after you fell in sleep.
Ullrich Wagner, Steffen Gais, and Jan Born have done a research to discuss the relationship between REM sleep and memory enhancement in German. A part of this study is a meta-analysis, which draws conculusion from previous study. They found that it confirmed that sleep in general can strengthen the memories compare to wakefulness. More than six studies are consistent with this conclusion. There are plenty evidences to reject the null hypothesis: REM sleep does not affect memories.
So how can it help to enhance our memories?
Aserinsky and Kleitman do an experiment in 1953. And they found that the images during REM sleep recorded by machine have a lot similarities with awake images. It means brains are not stop working in this period. On the contrary, brains works just like in daytime although we are unconscious. So during this REM period, brain automatically works and strengthen the memories of the knowledge we learn before. Some research also shows brain will select information and “delete“ un-needed one during REM sleep.
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So, do not think sleep is just a waste of time. It do help us to study better by strengthen memories. As for me, I have to sleep at least more than 8 hours to study more effectively next day. After learning about how my brain works during sleep, I find it more important to have such ample sleep every day. Trust me, sleeping is really important to your health, and also, to your grade maybe.
I actually just learned about this concept in my psychology class. Sleeping avoids retroactive interference. Retroactive interference is when information learned later interferes with information learned earlier. If you study right before you sleep, you remember things better by reducing the amount of retroactive interference. Here is some more information on this if you want to delve deeper!
I actually posted a blog before about the effects that naps have on us. In my research I discovered that sleep does help improve ones ability. Here is a link to my blog, take a look! Click Here
This is interesting and shows that people should really sleep on things before making a big decision if they can. I found this source http://apps.webofknowledge.com/full_record.do?product=UA&search_mode=GeneralSearch&qid=1&SID=2DWDIEhWk7W6B5zPVYY&page=1&doc=5&cacheurlFromRightClick=no
on how sleep effects memory and this one specifically found the same thing your sources found with scans. If all this information is true then not only does it help us learn but it can help us figure out the right answer to personal questions if we are having trouble deciding like with college or relationships. If given a choice or having to make a choice just go over all the opitions and then sleeping can help you be more confident on your decisions. At least that is one thing I drew from this.
I also feel when I wake up in the morning I remember so many things that from the night before I would’ve never remembered. Although the studies for this could be accurate, I think a major factor that has to do with this is the tiredness of someone before going to sleep, so rather than sleep improving memory maybe tiredness just disrupts memory? It could be the other way around or a combination of them both. This is actually called “brain fog” http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/10/01/brain-fog-symptoms/ which is where you’re tired so lose parts of your memory or blank out on things.