The importance of sleep was discussed today in The Neuroscience of Learning in relation to how well we can retrieve information. As a lead-up to sleep, the benefits of spaced out learning sessions was presented and it was explained that learners who tend to revisit information later on have better retrieval rates.
One factor in this is that studying in different contexts tend to lead to more associations in the brain. For example studying in your room, and then again in a cafe is suggested. However, it was shown that learners who tend revisit information 24 hours later have the best retrieval rates and the reason for this can be attributed to a good night’s sleep.
Returning to the hippocampus, it was discussed that during REM sleep, this part of the brain, which is associated with memory formation, sorts out important information. REM sleep is the hour before we awake, so if we are using an alarm to wake up unnaturally, we are likely short-changing our learning ability.
As an instructor at a university, I know that many of my students do not get a full night’s sleep. After watching this lecture, I would like to encourage them to try to do so, although I know this may be futile. But despite this, I am pleased to hear that incorporating much more review of past sessions has scientific backing in neuroscience research.