Your Brain Is Highest Active During Your Sleep
More sleep resulting in more cognitive development in children.
“A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.” — Irish Proverb
Sleep is the most relaxed time for our body but the most active time for our brain. Sleep is an expensive thing in our life and still, we can’t buy it with money. Almost 1/3 time of the human life span passes in sleep. Not just some sleep is important in our lives, but 6–8 hours of sleep is necessary for adults and 10–12 hours of sleep is necessary for children. With this much constant sleep also nap is required during the daytime for better learning & performance.
Sleep is an important physiological state in our life. Quality of sleep depends upon the quality of our day and vice versa. Sleep is an interesting subject for many researchers. For more than 100 years researchers are doing research on sleep but are still unable to find all aspects of sleep with respect to brain functions. Some of the known functions which sleep can improve; cognitive development, short & long-term memory, mental health, flexible thinking, verbal fluency, a boost in confidence, etc.
During the daytime, our memory is saved in the cortex of the brain, during our sleep hippocampus segregates data from our saved memory and sends back required data to the cortex. This process is known as memory consolidation. Better you sleep better memory consolidation happens in your brain while poor sleepers have a problem in memory consolidation resulting in problems like memory loss, irritating nature, frustration, depression, etc.
“There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest than in all the alcohol ever distilled.” — Edward Lucas, British Writer
Quality of sleep also decides our learning & productivity. A power nap is also important with regular sleep. Even a short power nap can refresh us to grasp new learning more effectively. Research shows that an hour of power nap can increase the language learning abilities of toddlers. In Finland, all Daycares & pre-schools have nap time. During the research, teachers’ observation said that if some kid is sleep-deprived then during the whole day he is tired, overreacting, fidgety, cranky & irritating. Their grasping ability & attention span is also very poor. Even for adults also nap is very important. Skill learning is very efficient after a short power nap.
Good quality sleep contains different stages of sleep. Different stages of sleep vary throughout sleep time from deep sleep to light sleep. During 8–10 hours of sleep, almost 2–3 cycle of such sleep stage takes place in everyone’s sleep. The duration of these sleep stages varies with the age & mental state of the person. Mentally or psychologically sick people have very poor sleep, and it is vice versa. The infant needs almost 16–18 hours of sleep, toddlers need 12 hours of sleep, children need 10 hours of sleep, and as age increases, sleep decreases in our life.
Sleep-deprived people may face consequences of less sleep like losing their temporary memory, may have problems in solving cognitive, mathematical & logical tasks, may have irritating moods, decrease in insulin levels, disturbance in the cardiovascular system, and decrease in thyrotropin levels.
Conclusion:
Sleep is the best tool to keep our cognitive, psychological & physiological health better. Let the brain do its best during our sleep. A power nap is also important with daily sleep to enhance our productivity. Live daily life in a way during the day so that you can sleep easily during the night for a better next day. As your tasks/thoughts/moods of the day affect your sleep and vice versa. Let children sleep for longer hours to enhance their cognitive development.
