The Blessed Restoration of Sleep

[Deleted]

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.

- William Shakespeare -

Getting enough sleep is an under-valued but crucial part of learning. Contrary to students’ belief that staying up all night to cram for an exam will lead to higher scores, truth is, the need for a good night’s rest is even more important than finishing homework or studying for a test.

A recent study in the journal Child Development showed that sacrificing sleep in order to study will actually backfire. The study followed 535 Los Angeles high school students for 14 days, tracking how long they slept, as well as how well they understood material being taught in class and how they performed on a test, quiz, or homework.

“Although the researchers expected that extra hours of studying that ate into sleep time might create problems in terms of students’ understanding of what they were taught in class, they were surprised to find that diminishing sleep in order to study was actually associated with doing more poorly on a test, quiz, or homework,” Science Daily wrote.

“Reduced sleep … accounts for the increase in academic problems that occurs after days of increased studying,” said UCLA scientist Andrew Fuligni. “Although these nights of extra studying may seem necessary, they can come at a cost.”

In another study by a research team at the University of York, researchers found that sleep even helps boost language acquisition skills in young children. ”Children’s ability to recall and recognize new words improved approximately 12 hours after training, but only if sleep occurs,” said Dr. Lisa Henderson, a lead researcher on the study. “The key effects were maintained one week later, suggesting that these new words are retained in long-term memory.” The study, published in Developmental Science, shows that when they sleep enough, children show the same learning patterns as adults.

Yet even with the well-documented evidence that sleep is necessary to learning, students continue to face increasing demands on their time. Kids often participate in extracurricular activities as well as hours of homework each night.
What’s really happening during sleep?

Sleep happens in several stages, with each phase serving a particular purpose. The human body takes care of its physical needs first. Quickly passing through stages one and two, which are brief, the body settles into several hours of stage three and four sleep. During these stages, neurons in the brain have synchronized into a regular rhythm and the body begins to repair itself. The immune system is restored, muscles and cardiovascular systems are rejuvenated and the positive effects on metabolism and muscle growth from exercise take effect.

“If you didn’t get a good night’s sleep, it’s really hard to learn new things because you didn’t clear out all the synaptic connections.”

“The reason to get a good night’s sleep is really so you can enjoy the next day and so you can consolidate what you did the day before,” said Dr. Matt Carter, senior fellow at the University of Washington in a recent webinar.

Towards the end of a typical six- to eight-hour night of sleep, the brain gets its chance at rejuvenation, during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. This is the stage that’s crucial for learners because the brain solidifies all that was taken in the day before and clears out old, unnecessary memories to make room for new information.

“In REM sleep your brain is basically replaying everything that happened during the day and consolidating what you’ve learned,” Carter said. During the learning process, the brain’s synapses fire in particular patterns. At night, those patterns are firing over and over again, strengthening the path. Equally important, there are many small details the brain remembers from the previous day that it won’t need. During REM sleep the brain purges the unnecessary details to make room for new learning the following day.

“If you didn’t get a good night’s sleep it’s really hard to learn new things because you didn’t clear out all the synaptic connections,” said Carter. The brain-rejuvenating functions happen in REM sleep, a later sleep stage, so if a student doesn’t sleep enough he won’t spend much time in REM.

Just as with adults, sleep-deprived kids won’t be able to focus as well, and over time, the effects of sleep deprivation will wear on the body.
What’s the solution?

Educator Madeline Levine and author of Teach Your Children Well says high schools should adjust their schedules to meet the needs of adolescents. School should start at 10 a.m. to help ensure high school students get the nine hours they need. That would go a long way in helping them to focus in class and could even prevent depression, a condition increasingly linked to lack of sleep.

And it’s not just about the number of hours in bed – it’s about the quality of sleep. “Sleep is something you can prepare for and be deliberate about,” Carter said, adding that people assume sleep comes naturally to kids. But for young ones, it’s especially important to establish a routine, not to eat carbohydrates before sleep, and to avoid bright screens before bed — the glow biologically resets circadian rhythms that respond to how much light enters the eye. For kids who have trouble falling asleep, parents should teach them relaxation techniques like taking deep breaths and listening to slow tempo music – that helps the neurons fall into their synchronized pattern quicker.

[Rebel]

As somebody that has been through a few classes in my life I think I totally understand the issue here.

Students that cram the night before probably are going to do better than they would have had they not crammed, unless they get so little sleep that they are fighting it off during the test.

Students that do not feel the need to cram possibly feel that way because they have the discipline to study daily and not wait for a last minute effort to squeak out a good grade, they remember more because it has been reinforced several times before the need to recall it.

When I was taking my classes I needed to get into PA school, I managed to get a lab partner that was in almost all my science classes. I(t was the best thing that happened to me, she could get something in her short term memory very fast. She would go over it a few times with me and it would soak in, I'd study on the days I was not in class and have it down very well before the class we had our test on. The tests were no strain for me at all because she helped me get it in that class. Unfortunately for her, her long term memory was poor, I think she just didn't really study at home. We tried to help her out by me returning the favor before the test, but it did not get her as high of a grade as she would like.

[bagga]

i sleep when i'm tired. when i'm not sleeping i'm awake.

[Rebel]

You are sure you are not dreaming?

[bagga]

i think i dream a lot during sleep. it seems that way anyhow. TN what's that mean?

[Deleted]

Apr 4, 2013 14:47:45 GMT -5 bagga said:

i think i dream a lot during sleep. it seems that way anyhow. TN what's that mean?

it means a very good thing.

And I would be surprised if you had not said it,I will get a little personal here but its very good stuff.

People think that exceptional people are always witty and colorful and often that is true, but witty comes in many flavors, many forms.

When we dream we experience that dream using cells that have almost no memory, there is a cross over time from being asleep and with the dream and becoming awake, what we remember of our dreams is from those two states mixing for a moment, hard to explain but what we remember is a copy of the dream held with waking brain cells that never actually experienced the dream.

dreaming is common to all, but having a rich cross over point to remember them with is somewhat rare.

Dreams are the product of a aware mind, a deep one, this does not have to reflect in colorful speech, but it does reflect a deep colorful person, folks could say your post are grey, flat and colorless, and on a quick surface glance they do appear that way, but looked at as a whole collection, Bagga, your post are really very transcendental, sometimes firework displays of wit and imagination,and with a dry Irish cultural humor, common only to almost remarkable minds, on a good day doug has this same wit, but i digress.

Remember it was a dream by pilots wife that warned him, you touch this man and all Rome will fall.

Dreams are not to be suppressed or controlled, they are cosmic abstract understandings of our lives, I was at 911, the number of folks who dreamed they should stay home, i mean my own friends confessing it, was life changing for me.

One woman told me she dreamed the road to work was pitted with Arab knives coming up from the ground all the way to her job, she broke down and cried admitting the dream scared her so, she could not drive to work.

I don't remember my dreams a lot, but i note i do dream and often it also means a real nights rest to do so.

ALSO, it is interesting, baseball players have the highest occurrence of remembering their dreams of any athletes


Young french painter DEGAS, had wild dreams of ballet dancers prancing thru the woods, over and over again, till he painted a picture of just that, it sold for a out outrageous price before it was dry, ten years and dozens more pictures of dancing through the woods later, he was one of the richest painters in the world before 40.

Do note the 2 girls to the right in the first (brownish, which i prefer of the 2 as the blue one is cold like ice) picture, both have "tutu'S or skirts that have no bearing on a real ballet skirt, that's what he saw in his dream, a maze of cloud around their waists

And every one of these pictures is as if from a dream---

[bagga]

tn, thanks........i think.

[bagga]

this is kind of a dream. who are you?

[Deleted]

Apr 9, 2013 18:35:29 GMT -5 bagga said:

this is kind of a dream. who are you?

I have been trying to answer that question for years and believe no honest man could even stray near the truth of it.







I do know, i like the way i have laid down the sword of fighting myself, when i was 17 I used to take lab acid and sit in the penthouse living rooms over Wash DC with embassy daughters and listen to this song.

I like what this wild redhead has done to it over the years

[bagga]

"embassy daughters"? sounds like it could have been fun.

[Deleted]

Apr 12, 2013 7:04:55 GMT -5 bagga said:

"embassy daughters"? sounds like it could have been fun.

I was a very poor person living with my father, tho my mother was very rich and re married. i lived among the rich of Washington DC,I saw things that made me loose all faith in mainstream mankind, but what saved me was the few rare exceptionalist who refused to fall into any pre determined thinking as a result of brain washing nonsense, those folks not addicted to solely thinking on one side of the isle of politics or the other, Those brave and grand folks who thought for themselves and where not the guilt ridden puppets of the mass manipulators who live by swindling you and me.


I learned too young, too painfully---


reality is not what we conceive it to be,or told it is, but most times what we selfishly need to pretend it is to keep our pride from being shattered, usually at some poor underdogs expense, and if you talk about it, you can get shot from the sky

[bagga]

i don't want to know about the money or the politics......i want to know about the "embassy daughters".

[Deleted]