I dreamt last night that I was back at university and I was trying to figure out a way to use various facilities, including the pool, for free. I thought I pulled it off but then I got caught and then I tried to figure out a way around the penalty.
I think these dreams were inspired by driving around the University of Queensland on Sunday, a place I once considered (in 1987) attending for law school.
I expect that getting better sleep would transform people’s lives more than any other factor and I expect that sleep will become the major new focus for people who want to lead a healthy life. For instance, if you snore, you have sleep apnea, and this is deadly. I suspect that half the men I know over age 40 have sleep apnea. You can see them suffering for lack of quality of sleep but most of them don’t want to check out their problem through an overnight sleep study.
According to Wikipedia: “The Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study estimated in 1993 that roughly one in every 15 Americans was affected by at least moderate sleep apnea. It also estimated that in middle-age as many as nine percent of women and 24 percent of men were affected, undiagnosed and untreated.”
The strength of your erection is a great test of your cardiovascular health, which also affects the likelihood of having sleep apnea.
Report: The researchers found that sleeping mice formed more synapses — the connections between neurons. This also enhanced their learning abilities.
By disrupting specific phases of sleep, the scientists also showed deep sleep (also referred to as slow-wave sleep) was necessary for memory formation. During this stage of sleep, it appears that the brain was replaying the activity from earlier in the day. The researchers believed this was an important component for enhancing and storing memories.
In summary, the researchers found that, like learning a new skill, the memory for places and events (e.g., “episodic memory”) is strengthened in these kinds of important ways during sleep. Keep in mind, though, that these are the findings of how neurons work in mice brains. Human brains are more complex, but the same basic principles may apply.
So next time you don’t think sleep matters all that much before a big day — whether it’s an exam, a presentation, whatever — think again. Sleep helps your memory and your learning skills. It’s the one thing you can easily stock up on when in doubt.
