by Dr. Gayatri Devi
The optimal way for students to pass exams would be to study daily and then sleep well.
If you are the cramming sort, go ahead, but make sure to sandwich a nice, long sleep session between the cram session and the examination.
This type of sleep helps consolidate all those bytes of information and occurs best with natural sleep. What this means, kids, is that sleep induced by hypnotics and prescription medications does not replicate the architecture of natural sleep, which is the optimal state for memory consolidation.
Want to be a creative thinker? First, work on the problem and immerse yourself in it. Then, fall asleep.
Freidrich Kekule inadvertently and famously discovered this. Kekule and his 19th century chemists wrestled with the structure of benzene until Kekule fell asleep to dream of a snake eating its own tail.
He then realized that the benzene molecule was ring shaped. If sleep helps straight-laced, inorganic chemists think laterally, think what it can do for Madison Avenue copy writers!
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It helps, of course, to be passionate about something. If you are a perfectly nice sort of fellow and can really sleep well, sleep may make you a mellow Rip Van Winkle sort in the Hudson Valley but not a Yo-Yo Ma in Carnegie Hall. Even so, sleep, to paraphrase the US Army, helps all of us be the best we can be.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The right answer is with practice and sleep, practice and sleep, practice and sleep.
Why then, this modern aversion to sleep? Why do people equate sleep with sloth?
Is a good eight to nine hours of sleep a night a waste of time or is it necessary, essential even, for us to function more efficiently?
Winston Churchill, no shirker by anyone’s standards, weighed in with his opinion, stating "Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep … that’s a foolish notion … you will be able to accomplish more."
Even Thomas Edison, who publicly disdained long periods of sleep and was big on short daytime naps, was, to surmise from his diary jottings, a restful night-time sleep enthusiast.
Sadly, for adolescents and young adults, there is a cultural stigma against those who turn in at eight or nine PM. Aside from the pressure of school work, socializing often begins at this time and those who opt to sleep in may lose out.
Confronted with this dilemma, most students sacrifice sleep, unknowingly exacerbating the situation. Furthermore, adolescents may be more susceptible to the mood altering effects of chronic sleep deprivation. Those who get less than the required nine hours of sleep, yes, nine hours, are more prone to depression and suicidal thoughts. Interestingly (and reassuringly), surveys reveal that adolescents generally conform to curfew times set by their parents. Good sleep habits may therefore be molded by parents, helping their children reap a lifetime of benefits.
I am here to champion the cause of sleep, a maligned yet crucial restorative and regenerative brain function.
As an avowed sleepaholic with eight to 10 hours of sleep under my belt most days, I can personally attest that sleep has helped me become more proficient and mentally resourceful. I recommend it highly. Good night and sleep tight!
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Gayatri Devi, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology, NYU School of Medicine, is the Director of New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services. Dr. Devi is a board certified neurologist who has additional board certifications in the areas of Pain Medicine, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Neurology. She serves as an Attending Physician at Lenox Hill Hospital of New York City.
Dr. Devi is the author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Alzheimer’s Disease: The Complete Guide to Preventing, Treating, and Coping with Memory Loss.
Dr. Devi completed her training at SUNY Downstate and after serving as Chief Resident of Neurology, she became a Fellow in Behavioral Neurology in the Department of Neurology at Columbia University. She was then Assistant Professor at SUNY Stony Brook and Director of the Long Island Alzheimer’s Disease Center. Dr. Devi has been an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Columbia University and Director of the Memory Disorders Center at the Center for Women’s Health at Columbia Presbyterian-Eastside.
Dr. Devi has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and has presented papers at national meetings of the American Neurological Association, the American Neuropsychiatric Association and the North American Menopause Society. She has appeared in the media to discuss memory disorders, including the BBC, Reuters, FOX and ABC. She is President of the National Council on Women’s Health.
