Students have already been used to calling themselves the most sleep-deprived social group. In fact, it is sort of a badge of honor at this point. However, is it really a notion to be proud of? Lacking a healthy amount of sleep or suffering from sleep difficulties is nothing but wrong. Such conditions affect one’s quality of life, physical and mental health, and work performance. Indeed, sleep deprivation will inevitably make you a worse student. On top of the mood swings, lack of energy, and poor attention, sleep deprivation will also affect your memory work, short and long-term.
Hence, young people should think twice before pulling all-nighters or choosing a party over a night’s sleep. Meanwhile, let’s learn more about the connection between sleep and memory retention.
Are sleep and learning interconnected?
Sleep affects most processes in our body and mind. Thus, a good night’s sleep gives time for the body to relax and rest. It produces hormones to repair cells and manages our cardiovascular processes to help heart and blood work. As for the mind, sleep is essential for learning, processing, and memorizing new information. Our brain deals with all the data at night, organizing everything learned or felt during the day according to ‘files.’
Indeed, this is when our minds learn to analyze emotions, reduce their intensity, and send them to the memory departments. Hence, a good night’s sleep also helps manage stress and anxiety. Thus, the quantity and quality of sleep directly impact how well you learn or deal with stressful and highly emotional situations like exams.
Sleep and memory retention
Two main sleep factors can affect one’s memory retention during learning. One, a sleep-deprived student simply lacks the energy to focus on learning productively. The lack of rest will affect how one can perceive new information, even without the need to process it.
Secondly, a poor night’s sleep interferes with memory consolidation. It means that each day a student starts learning as if they barely covered the materials yesterday. That’s when young people usually start worrying, “Who can do my paper for me?” since they can’t either retain information or focus on the current task. Even a day with a whole night’s sleep should help them reduce the consequences of sleep deprivation and enhance their retention abilities.
In fact, some studies show that even a short nap after an intense study session can help cement the new information and retain it for longer. So, it is a nice little trick for students who struggle with memory retention.
How lack of sleep affects our brain
Memory is not the only brain function that suffers during sleep deprivation. A person can go through a variety of symptoms indicating a lack of sleep. First of all, even after one night of poor sleep, we are no longer capable of optimal performance. Our emotional states suffer, leading to mood swings, irritation, and apathy.
After several days of sleep deprivation, people experience fatigue, exhaustion, lack of focus, and concentration. The ability to interpret events and information also weakens, as the brain prioritizes basic functions over retaining new data. A person will have a hard time making plans, assessing situations, adjusting their behavior, etc. In addition, these are only short-term cognitive function impact symptoms.
The long-term impact will significantly decrease performance, chronic fatigue, and even cognitive decline. Such symptoms will affect every sphere of one’s life and can have other long-term consequences like higher chances of dementia and other illnesses. In fact, a person may start developing false memories, thus, further interfering with the learning process.
How to improve your sleep
Since sleep has such immense power over our lives, we do need to maintain healthy sleep patterns. However, it seems that young people are most struggling when it comes to creating proper sleeping routines. Let’s see some tips on how a student can improve their sleep quality and, thus, enhance their memory retention.
A night routine
The preparations for sleep should start at least a couple of hours before bedtime. During this time, a student can tune down the lights in the room, reduce their screen time, drink mint tea or other warm beverages, and mute any notifications. It is also not recommended to have a heavy meal before bed. Best to spend the hour before bed engaging in relaxing activities like meditation, bed yoga, or reading.
Avoid alcohol
Alcohol before bed will interfere with the quality of your sleep. It has sedative qualities, so people falsely believe in its positive impact on sleeping. Indeed, you can fall asleep much easier after consuming alcohol. Yet, you won’t be able to achieve the important sleep stages which help you relax and feel refreshed.
Keep the bedroom for sleeping
A bed should be your place of rest. So, studying or watching movies in bed can reduce your sleep quality. It makes it harder for the brain to relax in the zone frequently used for active brain activity. Hence, try to leave the bedroom for leisure time and sleep, using other areas of the house for learning.
