It’s 4am. You have a big test in eight hours, and a piano recital in six. You’ve been studying and practicing for days, but you never seem to be adequately prepared. So what do you do? Have another cup of coffee and cram for a while? Actually, it might be in your best interest to close the books and put away the music and get some sleep.
Why Sleep Matters
We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, yet few of us give our snoozes any serious consideration. Nevertheless, sleep turns out to be much more than just a timewaster or a way to fill in the gaps once you’ve ticked off your other priorities. Your body needs sleep for everything from physiological maintenance to recovery and repair.
How Sleep Helps Your Brain
Sleep isn’t just good for your body, it’s also awesome for your brain. During sleep, your brain takes the time to reorganize everything that happened during the day so that you can remember stuff better.
Sleep is so important for memory — if you don’t get enough of it, you will not learn as much. The brain’s way of moving things across the sensation to recall threshold is like squeezing important information from the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is very relevant for this function.
Researchers learned a lot about memory — about how the hippocampus is necessary for remembering facts and stuff you have to memorise for a test — from surgery to remove part of this guy’s brain, H M.
How Memory Works While You Sleep
Even though you’re asleep, all this information from your short-term memory is being processed and turned into long-term memories, like the brain is taking files out of the ‘in-box’ and putting them in the ‘filed’ box.
Sleep’s Influence on Memory
Stages of sleep largely relate to different types of memory. Some stages are involved in remembering facts and things you’ve learned, while others aid memory relating to physical tasks such as playing a musical instrument, for example.
Skimping on sleep doesn’t just leave you with a caffeine headache and the inability to focus on simple tasks. It also impairs your ability to memorize things. In other words, getting proper sleep is good for your health, and it also will help you do well on tests and remember certain things.