When it comes to productivity, the importance of sleep is often neglected and rarely discussed. Whereas sleep plays the major role in determining our productivity and work performance.
We and most of the people who live in such tumultuous world of twenty first century seem to neglect this particular activity. Most of us even still think that sleep is just a waste of time. We can do our task and work instead of spending seven hours sleeping. Society nowadays glorifies sleep deprivation as a form of heroism or hard-working.
Elon Musk even states that he sleeps less than seven hours, whereas this might work for him and several people without affecting their everyday performance, scientist clearly emphasizes that people in majority should spend seven to nine hours to sleep. This also makes erroneous stigma that lack of sleep or even no sleep means that we are a hard-working person, whereas there are countless research proves that if we forsake this biological mandatory, it is our bodies that will punish ourselves.
I personally become aware of the explanation of the importance of sleep, in fact, when I was reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. I even had written my insight into the book in this blog, you can find it here.
Memories Restoration and Integration
Our brain has two places to store memories: the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex. The hippocampus is a part of brain to store memory, but it is limited in the capacity can only store memories in the short term. It cannot retain memories in a long interval of time. In contrast to the hippocampus, the cortex of our brain provides greater capacity for memory storage over a longer period of time.
Sleep plays an important role in memory storage and integration. When we are in conscious mode, the information we receive or learn will be delivered first into the hippocampus of the brain. This is why most of us tend to forget what we have just learned. The important thing happens only when we sleep, the brain transfers these memories from the hippocampus to a more permanent place, which is brain cortex. In addition, when we sleep, the brain will dismantle the memories that are threatened with fading and restore the memory.
This feature, obviously, is very useful when we learn something new, such as learning new skills. By getting enough sleep, the brain will transfer short-term memories, store and integrate them into a more permanent place.
Concentration and Mood Stability
Have you ever felt extremely exhausted, frustrated and emotionally unstable one day? Maybe it's because you're not getting enough sleep!
As a matter of fact, there is a part of the brain called the amygdala. This part is very primitive, often producing very intense level of emotions, such as anger, fear, disgust, or positive emotions such as happiness.
There is another part that is connected to the amygdala: the prefrontal lobe. It's right inside our forehead. This part of brain plays a major work as a center for logical thinking, decision making, rational thinking, or other tasks such as learning an ability. In addition, the prefrontal lobe controls our reactions to strong emotions produced by the amygdala.
What happens when we are sleep deprived is that this connection between the prefrontal lobes and the amygdala is kind of desynchronized or even disconnected. As a result, the emotions produced by the amygdala can no longer be controlled by the prefrontal lobe. The result can be very chaotic, we feel emotional changes in very short intervals of time. This time we can feel very angry and upset but then in the next second we feel very happy.
This very fluctuating mood changes will certainly and greatly interfere with our work performance. Not only that, it also affects our relationships with colleagues or the people around us.
Creativity and Problem Solving Ability
Dmitri Mendelev discovered the periodic system when he dreamed of chemical elements arranging in a certain order. Thomas Alva Edison often allowed himself to take a nap to get enlightened to make the electric light bulb. This is one of the powers of dreams, which may sound magical and strange, but is actually scientifically proven.
When we are dreaming, our brain processes information in a way that is not logistical at all. Our brains will make relationships between information with one another in a very creative but not in methodical way. Precisely when we dream, the brain is actually seeing what we are learning from a wider lens. This is why many people say they get new inspiration after they fall asleep. They managed to find the relationship between the facts that they had guessed before.
This is what makes us more creative in solving problems. Sleep, apparently, makes us look at problems in a big picture, thus making us find solutions that we never thought of before.
Tips to Get Enough Sleep
Actually sleep has many benefits other than those mentioned above. All of our organs, in fact, benefit when we get enough sleep and the same goes the other way around, all of our organs suffer when we are sleep deprived.
Sleep now can be a difficult thing to do nowadays, because there are many distractions that prevent us from sleeping. Avoiding caffeine consumption 8 hours before bedtime is something you can do. In addition, avoid using electronic devices at bedtime or at least activate sleep mode on the device so that the electronic screen displays a red-yellow light that is friendly to the eyes and can make it easier for us to fall asleep. Doing activities before bed such as reading or moving for 20 minutes also helps us to fall asleep quickly.
Sleep is a very important activity for us and our bodies, so the stigma of ‘no sleep = hard worker or great’ should be removed. Sleep is a biological mandate that applies to everyone, regardless. When we violate this obligation, it is our own body that will punish us.
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