Can sleep alone make learning easier? The latest sleep studies say yes. How you can boost your memory through sleep.
It would be so nice and, above all, so easy: learning while you sleep. All you would have to do is go through the exam content again before falling asleep. This can make perfect sense, as recent studies in sleep research have shown once again. It has been shown that the last thing you think about before going to bed is better stored in your long-term memory.
Research has long proven that sleep is important for memory formation and that newly acquired information is consolidated during deep sleep. But can the effect of learning during sleep be enhanced even further?
A lot helps a lot? In experiments, test subjects were given sleeping pills to prolong their sleep. However, this did not lead to an improvement in mental performance. The problem: deep sleep was not intensified and there was no improvement in memory formation. However, research results show that other methods of influencing sleep behaviour do have an effect.
Sleep as a memory booster
If, for example, you use a scent in parallel to a learning process, which is also emitted in the bedroom during sleep, this supports the memory of what has been learnt. This is because what has been memorised during the day is repeated by the brain during sleep and stored for the long term. The scent helps to reactivate the knowledge in the brain. According to science, sounds and words have the same effect if they are associated with certain learning content and then played during deep sleep.
Another possibility is to influence the sleep parameters, which are characterised by slow brain oscillations. These waves can be stimulated externally via sounds or electrical stimuli. Sleep studies have shown that this can improve memory performance. This method is particularly effective in the treatment of illnesses and in rehabilitation programmes for patients with speech disorders.
The industry has already responded to these sleep research findings and offers devices that use electrodes to stimulate brain activity. However, this also raises ethical questions: Is it really permissible or desirable to manipulate people while they sleep?
What do the billerbeck sleep experts say about learning during sleep?
‘A good day begins at night’ is not our motto by chance. We have been following sleep research intensively for over a hundred years. It is not necessary to manipulate brain waves in order to learn during sleep. Research has shown that the deep sleep phase is immensely important for memorising learning content. This phase can be reached for a sufficiently long time if all external circumstances are optimised. We recommend a quiet bedroom with the right temperature, a comfortable mattress, the right pillow for you and the perfect duvet. There is no substitute for truly restful and healthy sleep.
