Why does sleep help us learn?

This is how sleep participates in the consolidation of knowledge, helping us to learn.

Sleep is a necessity. If we want to perform physically and mentally the next day, we need to have had a good night's sleep the night before. Only by having a good sleep hygiene can we wake up rested and full of energy.

But in addition to recharging us, sleep can be our best ally to consolidate the learning we have done the day before. Sleeping well every night can be the factor that guarantees our academic success.

Why does sleep help us learn? Apparently, when we sleep we do nothing more than rest but, in reality, our brain continues to work and in a way that is very beneficial to us. Let's find out below.

How does sleeping contribute to learning?

No one doubts that sleep is a basic vital function. Sleeping for 8 hours recharges our batteries, giving us all the energy we have lost during the day.

Thanks to the fact that we switch off at night, our body carries out a series of processes that make our body recover all the energy we have spent the previous day. A good sleep makes us wake up rested, making us physically and mentally prepared for whatever the day has in store for us.

Many people see the act of sleeping as a synonym of the most absolute physical and mental inactivity.. However, although consciousness is turned off during sleep our brain continues to work and it is thanks to this brain work that while we sleep this helps us to learn better. In addition to making us wake up the next day more focused and clearer, sleep makes our brain work actively consolidating the learning that has been done during the previous day.

When we sleep, neuronal connections are formed, which explains why knowledge is better established while we are sleeping, as long as that sleep is of good quality. New dendritic spines are created, especially in the non-REM, short-wave sleep phase, which is a deep sleep that occurs during the first hours of the night and in which dreams are not generated.

Since sleep helps to better assimilate learned knowledge, acquiring a good sleep pattern should be a priority, acquiring a good sleep pattern should be key for students at any level of education.The importance of this is particularly evident in high school, pre-university and university, since it is students at these three levels who are most prone to staying up late before an exam.

It should be essential for these students to avoid late-night study sessionsespecially because of how they affect the quantity and quality of sleep afterwards, if they sleep at all.

The importance of getting a good night's sleep to internalize knowledge

Although it is no secret that getting a good night's sleep positively influences our cognitive ability, many students do not appreciate the importance of getting a good night's sleep, many students do not appreciate the importance of good sleep hygiene and how it relates to better performance and how it relates to performing better in the face of academic demands. Not only do they not get enough sleep, but they do things that make it even more difficult to fall asleep, such as abusing screens, drinking large amounts of caffeine and studying late in the day.

As we have mentioned, sleep not only provides us with the physical and mental rest we need after a full day consuming our resources. In addition to this, sleep allows us to settle well the knowledge we have been learning throughout the day. Sleeping well helps us to learn what we have seen during the previous day. Despite this, there are many students who believe that depriving themselves of a night's sleep and doing a big "cram" will help them on the next day's exam. Big mistake.

Even if we stop paying attention to something we are learning, the brain doesn't stop working on it, processing it.. Our brain performs several activities to consolidate this new knowledge and make it stay in our long-term memory. Although it is true that this process begins from the moment we encode the information, that is, from the moment we have received and understood it, it is during sleep when the consolidation process occurs in the most efficient way.

This consolidation process involves the neuronal reactivation of representations that were encoded during wakefulness, i.e., when we sleep we activate the same parts of the brain that were activated when we were learning something, whether in class or reviewing the syllabus. Thus, while we sleep it is as if we were reviewing what we had seen hours before, only this time we do it unconsciously.

In addition to this unconscious review, sleeping also contributes to our learning by by connecting recent ideas with others that are more or less distant but have some kind of relationship with the previous ones.. That is, thanks to sleep we are more likely to have "revelations" the next day, associating what we are learning now with subjects from other subjects and courses or some personal experience that can be related. In short, sleep improves learning and, in addition, promotes creativity.

Factors that impair sleep

There are two factors that negatively affect the quality and quantity of students' sleep that directly relate to their ability to learn.. The first has to do with the abuse of new technologies, especially video games and screens, while the second has to do with the consumption of caffeine, the star substance of study sessions and the only one to which minors have legal access.

Electronic devices

Video games are the most widely used form of entertainment in childhood and adolescence and are also the most demonized by supposed experts. A lot of nonsense has been said about this form of entertainment, among them that it makes young people violent, impulsive, less intelligent and other fallacies.

All this is false, however it is worth noting that its use in the hours before going to sleep can affect sleep since many video games increase alertness and stimulate emotionally.. Video games can keep us awake and make it difficult for us to fall asleep.

Another technological factor that has a negative impact on the consolidation of sleep is the use of screens in general, especially the use of cell phones. The abuse of screens a few hours before going to sleep has been associated with greater difficulty in falling asleep. because supposedly if bright light is received from these devices during the night, the nocturnal secretion of melatonin, which is the hormone that regulates sleep-wake cycles, is inhibited. The body thinks it is daytime, circadian cycles are altered, making it difficult to sleep at night and worsening the quality of our sleep.

Caffeinated beverages

Caffeine also affects the consolidation of learning during sleep. It is common knowledge that drinks such as coffee, tea or any other beverage containing caffeine wake us up and make it difficult for us to fall asleep, especially if we drink them in the evening, but also, contrary to what many believe, they have negative repercussions on our cognitive abilities.

Caffeinated beverages such as cola, tea, coffee or hot chocolate are products to which minors have easy access. It has been shown that prolonged consumption causes children to sleep on average 15 minutes less each night, which significantly affects their rest and performance the next day.which considerably affects their rest and performance the next day.

But in addition to this, the regular consumption of these substances leads to lower cognitive performance, which may even seem counterintuitive considering that the reason for their consumption is usually to "wake up".

If consumed occasionally, caffeine can increase our capacity for alertness and attention. However, if it is consumed regularly, what happens is that it reduces cognitive function. It is not that we become less intelligent the more coffees we drink, but it does make it more difficult for us to concentrate and pay attention. we find it more difficult to concentrate and pay attention.

In fact, there comes a time when in order to achieve the same concentration we had before becoming addicted we need to increase the dose of caffeine, since we have generated tolerance and dependence.

It is for this reason that under no circumstances should any caffeinated beverage be given to a child because, although it is not a drug like cannabis, alcohol or tobacco, caffeine alters the brain, generates dependence and makes them need to drink more and more in order to concentrate better. In addition, the vast majority of caffeinated beverages on the market contain enormous amounts of sugar, another reason why this type of soft drinks should not be given to children.

In short, caffeine affects academic performance in two ways. One, which is the most well known, is that it it alters sleep both qualitatively and quantitatively, depriving us of a process that helps to consolidate the knowledge acquired in class. in class. The other is that the more caffeine is consumed, the more dependence is generated, and the more quantity is required to have normal attention and concentration.

Recommendations

Given all of the above, it is extremely counterproductive to our learning to stay up all night, studying the day before the exam, drinking huge amounts of coffee and staying awake while looking at notes on the computer screen.

We will be tired but sleepless, we will not give our brain a chance to make connections between the ideas we learn and our learning will be very unstructured and will not last long in our memory. will be very unstructured and will not last long in our memory.

It is advisable that the study session is not done immediately before going to sleep, even if you intend to sleep at a recommended time (22h-23.30h) and even if the study is well dosed. If you want to study a little before going to sleep, the best thing to do is to review the notes, not to make summaries, outlines or any other cognitively demanding activity, because it will keep you awake and this will influence your sleep. because it will keep us awake and that will influence the consolidation of sleep.

Although many people claim that they do better studying at night, the truth is that it is counterproductive. The arrival of the night is the arrival of the end of the day and this is noticeable because we are very tired. We have been expending energy throughout the day and our bodies notice it, even if we don't want to admit it. We have been awake for almost 16 hours! Studying at night will only delay our sleep, even though we will be tired and that will not allow us to acquire knowledge.

That is why the best thing to do the best thing to do is to leave the study session for the first hours of the afternoon, between 4pm and 5pm.between 16h and 17h. Many studies point out that starting the study at that time, when several hours have already passed since we have eaten and there is still light, is perfect to be able to study concentrated. A primera hora de la mañana se puede intentar, pero tampoco suele ser recomendable debido a que si bien hemos empezado el día y, por lo tanto, no estamos cansados, todavía estamos bajo el influjo del sueño.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Rasch, B., & Born, J. (2013). About sleep's role in memory. Physiological reviews.
• Maquet, P., et al. (2000). Experience-dependent changes in cerebral activation during human REM sleep. Nature neuroscience, 3(8), 831-836.
• Wagner, U., et al. (2004). Sleep inspires insight. Nature, 427(6972), 352-355.
• Dworak, M., & Wiater, A. (2014). Impact on excessive media exposure on sleep and memory in children and adolescents. Young People, Media and Health: Risks and Rights. Nordicom, 99-110.
• Higuchi, S., et al. (2003). Effects of VDT tasks with a bright display at night on melatonin, core temperature, Heart rate, and sleepiness. Journal of Applied Physiology, 94(5), 1773-1776.
• Calamaro, C. J., et al. (2009). Adolescents living the 24/7 lifestyle: effects of caffeine and technology on sleep duration and daytime functioning. Pediatrics, 123(6), e1005-e1010.
• James, J. E., & Rogers, P. J. (2005). Effects of caffeine on performance and mood: withdrawal reversal is the most plausible explanation. Psychopharmacology, 182(1), 1-8.
• Heatherley, S. V., et al. (2006). Psychostimulant and other effects of caffeine in 9‐to 11‐year‐old children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(2), 135-142.
• Ruiz-Martin, H. (2020) ¿Cómo aprendemos? Una aproximación científica al aprendizaje y la enseñanza. España, Graó.
• Ruiz-Martin, H. (2020) Aprendiendo a aprender: Mejora tu capacidad de aprender descubriendo cómo aprende tu cerebro. España, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial.