Dumb and Tired? How Sleep Makes You Smarter

Here’s another tidbit from the Sleep-IS-Good-For-You file: Sleep can make you smarter.

We already know sleep helps us to manage stress, improve health, fire-up our problem solving abilities, end impatience, boost productivity and minimize general crankiness. And, we also know, as I can attest, that it isn’t always easy to come by. But, here is yet another reason to make time for sleep: it can make you smarter.

Science Big Wigs now say sleep can help us store and reorganize new information and memories so that we can use them during our waking hours.

Researchers, led by a team at the University of York, found that sleep helps people remember and incorporate new information which is key to expanding our vocabulary as well as enhancing other types of knowledge.

According to the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience , researchers identified the brain activity that occurs during sleep to help us organize new memories and connections with our existing knowledge.

In this study, participants were taught new words and then tested immediately. Then, their brain activity was recorded in the lab while they slept through the night. A test the next morning showed that study participants remembered more words than they did immediately after learning them. They could also identify the words faster, which indicated that sleep had actually strengthened the new memories.

Participants who were taught new information in the morning and tested in the evening before sleep, weren’t as successful.

So get some shut-eye.  Here are some tips to help you do it.  It’s the smart thing to do.

Portions of this post first appeared in Psychology Today.