A new study from my alma mater, University of California at Berkeley, shows that a one-hour nap can significantly restore your mental capacity, make you more intelligent and clears out old information to make way for new learning.

On the other side of the coin, the longer you go without sleep, the more we lose mental clarity and become increasingly foggy.  As any new parent knows, interrupted sleep makes one grouchy, irritable, and what’s more, poor sleep makes one less able to concentrate effectively.

When I was in college, I had classmates that would pull all-nighters to cram for finals. I never pulled an all-nighter,  partly because I just couldn’t operate the next day without sleep. The study from UC Berkeley showed a marked difference in the learning ability of students who pulled an all-nighter versus those who got their z’s in. Remarkably, those students who studied all night without sleep showed a 40% decline in their ability to learn new facts due to a shutdown in their hippocampus, a brain area associated with fact-based learning.

The hypothesis which is gaining support from research is that the hippocampus eventually becomes overloaded and sleep gives it a chance to empty itself out, similar to deleting your junk mail  folder in Outlook. Space is freed up so it can be used in new, more constructive ways.

For more information and the full article, please click [1] here.

Have an incredible week!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Bay Area, California