We live in a sleep-deprived world. It’s affecting all areas of society and much of it leading to being unhealthy. When I was in the Marines and the LAPD, a lack of sleep certainly affected me. During a certain training in the Marines I was forced to become sleep-deprived. This affected my thinking skills and I even hallucinated. A lack of sleep even affects our choices in health.
There have been many studies regarding how important sleep is to learning and memory. Back in January 2014 a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed how the learning we have during our waking hours are consolidated with our memories during sleep. More important is that the brain resets itself during sleep. The more we learn, the more important sleep becomes.
When we learn something, the neuroconnections (synaptic connections) lessened during the sleep cycle. The reason for this is that the “unimportant details” of what was learned is not necessary for the integration of learning to happen. When you first learned how to drive a car, you don’t remember every single detail as to how to drive, right? You just do it. It’s already ingrained. That is learning at its best.
While learning and memory have been associated with sleep, it’s now hypothesized that physical learning is as well. In a 2014 study by NYU Langone Medical Center / New York University School of Medicine, the dendrites of motor neurons are formed during sleep after a new learning event takes place while awake. During the deep stages of sleep the new growth of the dendrites takes place.
Take the martial arts. Many new students I’ve taught have no idea on how to throw a proper punch. They may see movies and such, but their punching technique is way off. After the first day of punching they will come back the next day better. Over the course of several weeks, their punching skills are much, much better. During their deep sleep cycle, their motor neurons formed new connections regarding punching. Eventually the connections became more powerful and so did their punching.
Chronic sleep loss throws off our circadian rhythm. Additionally, we start creating a sleep debt. We may falsely believe that from one night of long sleep we can fully recover, we can’t. Even if we have good performance at the beginning of the day, it drops dramatically afterwards (Cohen, et. al, 2010). The consequences are enormous. Take the recent Walmart truck driver, who crashed his rig into comedian Tracy Morgan’s vehicle, killing one person and putting Tracy in the hospital under critical condition. The driver of the truck had apparently not slept for 24+ hours.
Typically, long haul truck drivers are in heavy sleep debt. They are on our nation’s highways and at any time a bad accident can occur. It’s ironic that the U.S. government wants to lessen the laws restricting working hours for truck drivers. That will become a dangerous action.
Many of those in emergency professions also are sleep deprived. I was as a Los Angeles police officer and it seems to be worse nowadays.
It’s highly important to get quality sleep. 6-8 hours is the amount typically recommended. Not only for learning and memory, but also for better performance the reason why you need sleep. I can’t force you. It’s ultimately your decision and action. I can only recommend for you and for me.
Now, get consistently quality sleep!
Cheers,
Bob Choat, “Transformational Master Black Belt” 
America’s #1 Mind-Body Transformation Expert and author of Mind Your Own Fitness
References
Daniel A. Cohen, Wei Wang, James K. Wyatt, et. al. “Uncovering Residual Effects of Chronic Sleep Loss on Human Performance.” Science Translational Medicine 2 (2010) 1-16 DOI:10.1126/scitranslmed.3000458
University of Wisconsin-Madison. “SHY hypothesis explains that sleep is the price we pay for learning.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140109003815.htm (accessed June 10, 2014).
Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, “Sleep and the Price of Plasticity: From Synaptic and Cellular Homeostasis to Memory Consolidation and Integration.” Neuron 81 (2014) 12-34 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.12.025
NYU Langone Medical Center / New York University School of Medicine. “Sleep after learning strengthens connections between brain cells and enhances memory.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140605141849.htm (accessed June 10, 2014).
Guang Yang, Cora Sau Wan Lai, Joseph Cichon, et. al. “Sleep promotes branch-specific formation of dendritic spines after learning.” Science 344 (2014) 1173-1178 DOI: 10.1126/science.1249098
