When we get tired, we sleep so we can shut down to rest and rebuild. It seems logical that the brain would follow a similar pattern. After all, don’t we get tired of thinking and want to turn the process off after a while? Sleeping sounds like the perfect way for our whole system, including our brain, to check out and take a break.
Not so much!
During sleep our brain is, in fact, extraordinarily active. As it turns out, much of that activity helps the brain to learn and remember. Sleeping is involved in the learning and memory process in several important ways. Let’s look at 3 of them.
Sleeping consolidates learning by restoring what was lost over the course of a day, and by protecting against further loss. These findings suggest that sleep has an important role in learning specialized skills, and in stabilizing and protecting memory. This consolidation process may also help with language skills like reading and writing, as well as eye-hand skills such as tennis.
We may have vivid memories of past events, but how do we remember the order of events? Until recently, it has never been clear how the brain keeps track of the chronological sequence in such memories. New research has confirmed that long-term memories are formed while we are asleep. This is accomplished by the brain replaying the memories of our daily experiences during the night.
Some sleep researchers believe that for every two hours we spend awake, the brain needs an hour of sleep. This sleep time is used to figure out what all these experiences mean. Clearly, sleeping plays a crucial role in helping us to grasp the meaning our own lives.
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