Your Brain Needs Sleep Too

Feeling sluggish even though you been conserving your energy? That’s your brain talking. We all know how important it is to get a good sleep, but new studies continue to show more and more cognitive benefits from regular sleep patterns.

Recent studies have identified sleep as essential for learning a diverse set of new complex tasks, ranging from spatial and visual memory skill acquisition to learning motor sequences.

Studies also indicate that not only is it important to get good sleep before performing a task, but it is essential to get good sleep after learning a task as well. In fact, empirical observations have demonstrated that among test groups of people learning new tasks, those who slept after learning the new task performed the task much better than those who stayed awake over the same time period before performing the task.

In effect, we need to break up our tasks with sleep.

Learning a new task, or preparing for a new task, each requires sleep afterwards. Sleep allows the brain to rest and absorb the new lessons or challenges that have been put before it.

So don’t just wait until you are tired. Nourish your brain with strategically-timed sleep, such as sleeping through the night to let a lesson sink in, or taking a quick nap after task set-ups. Incorporate well-timed sleep into your schedule for optimal brain performance when you are awake.