Sleep is fundamental for all human life, and is primarily important for increasing alertness and energy levels, but also learning enhancement and problem-solving skills. In this article, I will discuss how sleep can be used to your advantage to improve your learning capacity and improve your grades.
Throughout the night, we go through 4 sleep stages:
Light non-REM sleep (falling asleep) - A stage prevalent at the beginning of the night.
Light non-REM sleep - A stage present throughout the night, but is the richest in the later cycles of sleep.
Deep non-REM sleep - The stage dominating the first couple of sleep cycles.
Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM) - The stage dominating the last couple of sleep cycles.
A sleep cycle is roughly 90 minutes long and makes up our ultradian rhythms. Image 1 is a hypnogram of a standard or simplified sleep cycle. However, sleep cycles are not equal throughout the night as aforementioned. Instead, the stages are unequally distributed throughout the night as illustrated by Image 2.
Image 1: (Recharge Energy 2009) Image 2: (Oura 2023)
Light non-REM sleep is essential for the transferring of information from the hippocampi to the cortex where long-term memories are processed. Furthermore, Light-non REM sleep provides a filter that is based on the importance of information and filters out irrelevant knowledge gathered throughout the day. Hence, perceiving something as important can strengthen the memory of it. This is why napping may be beneficial. It has been shown that napping in between bouts of learning can enhance memory performance by 20%. This is because light non-REM sleep makes room for new information to enter the hippocampi which has a limited storage capacity. This correlates with light non-REM sleep having the highest frequency of sleep spindles. Sleep spindles are a burst of activity in the brain followed by a muscle twitch. Recharge Energy advises students to take about 20-minute long naps before or after an intense bout of learning to improve the retention of information.
Deep non-REM sleep improves memory retention and recall of information. It is the slow waves of the brain that transfer information from the hippocampi to the cortex. As deep non-REM sleep is most prevalent at the beginning of the night, it is essential to not stay up late to study, as an example. Students who went to bed after 2 am spent less time in this stage and performed worse academically than students who went to bed before 12. Furthermore, irregular bedtimes, in terms of going to bed later than usual, lead to a decrease in deep non-REM sleep which underlines the importance of a regular sleeping schedule. Lastly, it is necessary to note that late caffeine intake decreases the time spent in this stage and worsens its quality.
Rapid Eye Movement sleep is commonly known as the dreaming stage and is prevalent in the last cycles of a night’s sleep. REM sleep improves associative memory which is useful for problem-solving, decision-making, elaborative rehearsal and creative thinking. Elaborative rehearsal is the act of learning by connecting information to existing knowledge that one already possesses. Once again, regularity is essential to make sure that enough REM sleep is achieved to enhance all of these functions. Therefore, it is essential to not wake up too early, or earlier than usual. Lastly, the consumption of alcohol obstructs REM sleep.
Overall, students with regular sleep schedules perform better academically, and among one test group, there was a positive correlation between the amount spent sleeping and sleeping quality, and grades. Regularity was once again emphasized by the findings that getting a good night’s rest before a test made little difference, but that it was crucial in connection to learning, meaning that the days leading up to a test can be among the most beneficial times of good night rests. Although some students slept the same amount on average, it was the regularity of their schedules that differentiated the better-performing students from the worse-performing ones.
With that said:
Sleep for 7–9 hours
Stick to a regular schedule
Go to bed before midnight
Avoid alcohol
Avoid caffeine in the afternoon
Nap for 20 minutes after and/or before studying
Good night!
References
Oura. 2023. “What Are The 4 Stages Of Sleep & What Does Each Stage Do?” Oura Ring. https://ouraring.com/blog/sleep-stages/.
Recharge Energy. 2009. “Student Sleep Guide.” Recharge Energy. https://recharge.energy/pdf/Student_Sleep_