Read Online Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance by Richard Restak - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard Restak
Tags: nonfiction
Ads: Link
the market now that target different neurotransmitters while exerting minimal effects on the normal brain wave patterns associated with normal sleep.
Embrace the Power of Naps
After you’ve resolved your nighttime sleep problems you can use naps as an additional brain enhancer. A daytime “power nap” will produce nearly as much skill-memory enhancement as a whole night of sleep, according to the findings of Mathew P. Walker.
In an experiment testing finger dexterity, Walker taught student volunteers skilled finger movements similar to piano scales. After learning the movements half of the students took a sixty-to-ninety-minute nap while the others remained awake and continued with their day. When retested later that same afternoon, those who napped did 16 percent better than those who did not nap.
“A daytime power nap produces nearly as much off-line memory enhancement as a whole night of sleep,” Walker told me. In order to do this, the brain selectively increases brief bursts of electrical activity called “sleep spindles.” Walker believes that these spindles trigger chemical reactions within brain cells that “instruct” specific brain circuits to strengthen connections, and thereby enhance memory.
“The brain selectively increases spindle activity in local brain circuits, thereby discretely targeting those regions in the brain that have recently formed new memories. Sleep spindles appear to make a selective and critical contribution to improving our motor memories at night and across power naps during the day,” said Walker.
Fortunately, the benefit of naps isn’t confined to learning motor skills, because most of the things we want to remember involve facts, words, and concepts rather than motor skills.
In an experiment confirming this, Mathew Tucker at the City University of New York asked volunteers to memorize pairs of words. They were then tested immediately afterward and a second time six hours later. Those who had been allowed a nap of less than one hour (far too short a time for REM sleep to occur in the normal person) scored 15 percent better than the nonnappers.
Naps play an especially critical role in the lives of highly creative people. When performance psychologist K. Anders Ericsson examined the diaries of expert musicians, he found that most of them could engage in concentrated focused practice for only around an hour. After that, their concentration began to falter and their performance declined. To compensate for this turndown in performance, they spent more time napping. These recuperative naps restored their ability to maintain the high levels of concentration required for their creative efforts.
At this point you’re probably wondering: But how do I force myself to fall asleep for a nap less than an hour long? And doesn’t taking a nap make it more likely that I’ll not be able to get to sleep later that night?
Sleep can’t be forced. It has to flow naturally from a state of relaxation and surrender. Indeed, sleep involves a paradox: The more effort you expend trying to fall asleep, the more awake you become. Instead of trying to force yourself to sleep, you should set an alarm for thirty minutes (or ask someone to awaken you after that time) and lie down with the intention of simply relaxing. After a few days of doing this, you’ll find yourself drifting off into a brief but refreshing sleep. I discovered this several years ago when I was teaching an evening course on the brain at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
My lecture, and the questions-and-answers following, went on from six to eight p.m. As I discovered, that schedule proved exhausting, especially on busy days when I was already beginning to feel fatigued after a day in which I wrote from seven to nine a.m., then treated a steady stream of patients from ten until four. In order to recharge my energy before my lecture, I decided to try simply turning off the lights in my office at four-thirty and
Embrace the Power of Naps
After you’ve resolved your nighttime sleep problems you can use naps as an additional brain enhancer. A daytime “power nap” will produce nearly as much skill-memory enhancement as a whole night of sleep, according to the findings of Mathew P. Walker.
In an experiment testing finger dexterity, Walker taught student volunteers skilled finger movements similar to piano scales. After learning the movements half of the students took a sixty-to-ninety-minute nap while the others remained awake and continued with their day. When retested later that same afternoon, those who napped did 16 percent better than those who did not nap.
“A daytime power nap produces nearly as much off-line memory enhancement as a whole night of sleep,” Walker told me. In order to do this, the brain selectively increases brief bursts of electrical activity called “sleep spindles.” Walker believes that these spindles trigger chemical reactions within brain cells that “instruct” specific brain circuits to strengthen connections, and thereby enhance memory.
“The brain selectively increases spindle activity in local brain circuits, thereby discretely targeting those regions in the brain that have recently formed new memories. Sleep spindles appear to make a selective and critical contribution to improving our motor memories at night and across power naps during the day,” said Walker.
Fortunately, the benefit of naps isn’t confined to learning motor skills, because most of the things we want to remember involve facts, words, and concepts rather than motor skills.
In an experiment confirming this, Mathew Tucker at the City University of New York asked volunteers to memorize pairs of words. They were then tested immediately afterward and a second time six hours later. Those who had been allowed a nap of less than one hour (far too short a time for REM sleep to occur in the normal person) scored 15 percent better than the nonnappers.
Naps play an especially critical role in the lives of highly creative people. When performance psychologist K. Anders Ericsson examined the diaries of expert musicians, he found that most of them could engage in concentrated focused practice for only around an hour. After that, their concentration began to falter and their performance declined. To compensate for this turndown in performance, they spent more time napping. These recuperative naps restored their ability to maintain the high levels of concentration required for their creative efforts.
At this point you’re probably wondering: But how do I force myself to fall asleep for a nap less than an hour long? And doesn’t taking a nap make it more likely that I’ll not be able to get to sleep later that night?
Sleep can’t be forced. It has to flow naturally from a state of relaxation and surrender. Indeed, sleep involves a paradox: The more effort you expend trying to fall asleep, the more awake you become. Instead of trying to force yourself to sleep, you should set an alarm for thirty minutes (or ask someone to awaken you after that time) and lie down with the intention of simply relaxing. After a few days of doing this, you’ll find yourself drifting off into a brief but refreshing sleep. I discovered this several years ago when I was teaching an evening course on the brain at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
My lecture, and the questions-and-answers following, went on from six to eight p.m. As I discovered, that schedule proved exhausting, especially on busy days when I was already beginning to feel fatigued after a day in which I wrote from seven to nine a.m., then treated a steady stream of patients from ten until four. In order to recharge my energy before my lecture, I decided to try simply turning off the lights in my office at four-thirty and
Similar Books
![James, Elle Saint - Unbridled and Unridden [The Double Rider Men's Club 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/467078/thumbs/152x264/james-elle-saint-unbridled-and-unridden-the-double-rider-mens-club-4-siren-publishing-menage-everlasting.jpg)
