Understanding Sleep: Sleep And Remembering

Memory And Sleep

Whether what you've learned is mental (learning new facts, studying for a test), or it is physical (learning new moves for sports, maybe studying playing the piano), going to sleep afterwards can help you learn better. Scientists have long thought that one of the purposes of sleep was for the brain to sort out short term memories, and transfer them to long term storage. Recent research seems to prove this is the case.

Volunteers in this study were asked to spot a pattern that was shown on a screen. Those who got six to ten hours of sleep at night did better at the task the next day. And they continued to improve over the next several days. But people who had a sleep debt, who were sleep deprived, on the first night, showed no improvements. This was the case even if they caught up on their sleep! "If you miss that first night of sleep, the learning decays somehow, and you can't make up for it by sleeping more later," according to Robery Stickgold, Ph.D., study coordinator. "Sleep seems to allow the brain to finish a process that starts while you're awake."