Sleep is the secret of my Creativity!
Words by: Chandra Vadhana Image: Created by Nensuria
Last week, a young man asked me for an appointment for a discussion on a project he was initiating. I replied,” Fine, call me at 8am tomorrow, Let’s discuss”. The next day I got a message around noon saying “Sorry mam, I woke up late due to late night work. Can I call you now?”
This got me thinking, “Why do people sleep till noon? Is it because they are sleep deprived or is it a habit? How much should we sleep?” I then started reading about sleep and how much it influences our lives.
Well, I am sure I don’t have to delve much into the physical benefits of a good sleep. Sleep is probably one of the most important physical functions which is restorative and rejuvenating. Apart from this, what I was more interested about was the benefits of sleep in improving your overall learning and creativity.
During sleep, several pieces of information gathered during the day is rearranged and consolidated by our brain, thus forming connections that otherwise might not be made while awake. Well, that’s probably the reason why some days we “wake up” with new ideas – The Waking Genius phenomenon.
Sleep also helps in better learning. To prove this hypothesis, scientists used some lab rats and a maze experiment. One group of lab rats practiced running around the maze, followed by a period of sleep, and then ran the maze again when they woke up. The other group practiced running around the maze but was not allowed to sleep before running the maze again. The scientists found that the sleepers learned more quickly. Interestingly, it was also found that even when the rats that were not allowed to sleep were given more time to practice running the maze, the sleepers still learned more quickly. Why did this happen, even when the second group got more time to practice? This leads us to the role of sleep in learning – not only does sleep help in consolidating information but also in preparing and storing the said information to the long term memory and in creating newer insights to solving any problem.
Chandra Vadhana or CeeVee, as she would like to be known, is an Entrepreneur, Coach and Consultant in the field of Psychology and Human resource management. Her writing skills have been tested and tried in her academic papers and rest of the time through her Facebook rants. Chandra can be contacted via FB or by email cvadhana@gmail.com.
This and several other experiments have proven that pulling an all –nighter is the worst thing that you can do to become more creative or innovative.
Now, let me give you a practical tip to help you become more creative by utilizing the benefits of sleep.
Whenever you have some serious problem to solve, write it down on a piece of paper – describing clearly your problem and then keep it by your bedside. Sleep well. When you wake up, immediately start writing down the ideas that come to your mind relating to that problem. Some of them may be weird. But I am sure you will find at least one brilliant idea out of the list! Personally, I have found this to work. I also found that most of my creative ideas came in the early mornings and most of my creative writings also happen in the early mornings.
Try it and share your results with me. Send in your experience to Chandra@4tunefactory.in
Until next, Have a creative sleep week!
CeeVee from CeeVees Corner
P.S: All students who sleep in class – Now you got one good reason to tell your teacher when you get caught!