Sleep for Deep Learning

All of what we learn while awake from our experience of life comes in to the short term storing space of the hippocampus. But this can only hold so much, almost certainly full by about sixteen hours of wakefulness. So, what do we need as part of the recipe of so many of life's experiences, including learning? Sleep, of course!

While we sleep, new information we brought in during wakefulness is transferred to longer term memory within the cortex. Much of this happens within the second stage of NREM sleep, which has some part of every 90 minute sleep cycle. Deep, slow brain waves pulsing through our brain known as sleep 'spindles' are needed for this file transfer. Thus, sleep hits the save button in this way on new memories.

And memories don't wait around for too long in the queue for the ride of consolidation. Cram for a test the night before while getting little sleep as a consequence, and study shows us that you are likely to remember little of what you so called 'learned' a month later. And so, if you truly want to learn something and remember, sleep is a non-negotiable inclusion within the learning process.? To potentially enhance our learning ability during the day, a short nap of 15 to 20 minutes could be enough to enter stage 2 of NREM sleep and benefit from some opened capacity for learning.

What about procedural and motor memory? Sleep not only has a function of saving these kinds of memories, but also enhancing them. Memory replay at speeds of ten to twenty times faster rehearses the skills we have learned while we sleep. It is while we sleep that we can work on closing the gaps. 'Practice...with a night of sleep...leads to perfection'.

And from our new memories, our mind can create wildly creative novel ideas through our REM phases of sleep. Like I describe within Sleeping for Emotions and Creativity | LinkedIn the environment of our brain during REM phases of sleep is much less logical than wakefulness, giving us the opportunity to experiment with all kinds of ways new ideas might fit into what we already know.

For more on what sleep offers us and how to develop a practice of truly restorative sleep, I have previously shared...Ingredients for Sleeping Well: QQRT at Ingredients of Sleeping Well: QQRT | LinkedIn, ’Sleeping for Emotions and Creativity’ at Sleeping for Emotions and Creativity | LinkedIn, 'For a Good Night's Sleep' at For a Good Night's Sleep | LinkedIn and 'Sleep is Fascinating: Imagining Eight Hours of Sleep' at Sleep is Fascinating: Imagining Eight Hours of Sleep | LinkedIn