Stating that there is a very important relationship between learning and memory and healthy sleep, experts point out that sleep is an important process that has the task of "rebooting" the brain. According to experts, sleeping after learning a piece of information or a behavior makes that information and behavior permanent, and studying without sleeping the night before the exam is useless.
Üsküdar University NP Etiler Medical Center Psychiatry Specialist Asst. Assoc. Prof. Fatma Duygu Kaya Yertutanol pointed out that there is a very strong relationship between sleep and learning and memory.
Yertutanol said, "You don't need a miracle to learn the information you read and the skills you are trying to acquire faster and more effectively. An adequate and healthy sleep routine is actually the key to successful learning."
"Sleep is the process of rebooting the brain"
"Everyone knows how important sleep is for physical and mental health," said Asst. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatma Duygu Kaya Yertutanol and added, "After a sleepless night, we first feel more active, cheerful and energetic, but as the hours pass, this situation begins to be replaced by fatigue, decreased attention, drowsiness, irritability and depression. If we don't get a chance to sleep that night, our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviors change significantly in the following hours. Our mind gets confused and we start to perceive ourselves and the environment strangely. For this reason, sleep is considered an important process that has the task of "rebooting" the brain."
Expressing that this "reboot" not only allows the brain to return to factory settings, but also mediates the integration of the most recently encountered information into the neural networks appropriately, Assist. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yertutanol said, "In other words, it is not a process in which new information is simply overwritten with old information, instead, the brain is constantly updated by integrating new information and experiences with the old ones."
Learned information is memorized during sleep
Stating that learning roughly takes place in three stages, Assist. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatma Duygu Kaya Yertutanol listed these stages as follows: "The information learned is first encoded, then strengthened and made permanent, and finally recalled, that is, remembered. If the information learned does not pass the first stage, that is, if it is only encoded but not reinforced, then it is forgotten. Since this reinforcement phase can be done over and over again, encoded information can be reinforced each time it is remembered, making it possible to learn for a longer period of time. This is where the importance of sleep comes to light. Sleep is a process in which encoded information is first activated and then reinforced and stored in long-term memory."
Sleep after learning a new dance move!
Noting that there are many studies showing that different stages of sleep (with and without rapid eye movements) affect different learning processes, Yertutanol said, "Sleep helps to strengthen not only verbal information (e.g. Cairo is the capital of Egypt) but also procedural information (e.g. riding a bicycle, playing the guitar). Therefore, if you get enough sleep after reading new information, learning a new dance move, playing a new piece of music or practicing backstroke, you will realize that you remember that information, dance better, play that piece better or swim better the next day."
No benefit of staying up all night before an exam
Assist. Prof. Dr. Fatma Duygu Kaya Yertutanol stated that studying the night before the exam does not contribute to learning and said the following:
"Although life as a whole is a learning process, if you remember your student years when this process was most actively experienced, you will most likely think of sleepless nights before exams. It is obvious how wrong it is to be sleepless on the nights before "exams" that aim to measure how much knowledge has been learned and how much has been remembered. Because sleep deprivation interrupts learning at different points. If one is sleep deprived before encountering new information, then the encoding of the information, i.e. the initial recording, becomes difficult. If insomnia occurs after previously encoded information, that information cannot be strengthened. Even the recall of previously learned information is negatively affected."
Get a healthy sleep pattern
Stating that with the advancement of science and technology, it will be possible to fully elucidate the relationships between sleep, learning and memory, Asst. Assoc. Prof. Fatma Duygu Kaya Yertutanol said, "Thus, one day, it will be possible to weaken or destroy the traces of unwanted memories in the brain during sleep or to learn new information. But until that time comes, it seems that the best thing we can do for effective learning is to try to have a healthy sleep pattern."