Remember to Sleep on it to Remember It Better.Remember putting in those all-nighters in school to finish mounting piles piles: see hemorrhoids. of homework? Well, it turns out that that probably was a self-defeating self-de·feat·ing adj. Injurious to one's or its own purposes or welfare: "American officials will find it harder than ever to ward off self-defeating protectionist measures" George R. Packard. strategy. Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard College Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. researchers have found that people who stay up all night after learning and practicing new tasks show little improvement in their performance. After training a group of volunteers in a complex task, the researchers let half of the group get a normal night's sleep, while the other half stayed awake until the next night. Four days later both groups were tested. The group that slept the first night performed the task faster than they had the day they practiced. The other group showed no improvement, despite having two nights to catch up on their sleep. Researchers believe that sleep helps start the process of memory consolidation, and that lack of sleep contributes to the process of some memories washing out of the brain. (Nature Neuroscience Nature Neuroscience is a scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group, the publisher of Nature. Its focus is original research papers relating specifically to neuroscience. ) |
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