Insight Improved Through Sleep

I have, as I am sure many of you have, found myself stuck on a problem or a paper in school. Next time this problem strikes, the best solution may be to sleep on it. Studies, as well as many personal accounts, have found that sleep promotes insight, the sudden mental ability to gain explicit knowledge.

In one study, a number reduction task was given to subjects. The task involved finding out a final number in a series. Insight could be measured when the subjects was able guess the final number after just the second number, as they were always the same. Subjects were given the task and then either stayed awake throughout the day, stayed awake throughout the night, or were allowed to sleep before being re-tested. 60% of the subjects that were allowed to sleep gained insight to the task, compared to roughly 20% of the other two groups. This is perfect evidence to show that if you are stuck on a certain problem, sleeping on it can greatly increase your chance of solving it the next day. Responsible for this phenomena is the hippocampus playing back the newly aquired information to the neocortex. The neocortex is where the information is stored long term and can be incorporated with preexisting knowledge.

One famous example of insight gained through sleep is the creation of the periodic table by Dmitri Mendeleev. Mendeleev had been struggling to find a way to organize the elements and, after many sleepless nights, finally went to bed. During his sleep he had a dream in which he saw the periodic table of elements and recorded it upon waking. On a much smaller scale, college students can benefit from this process as well. For instance, you may find yourself stuck on a math problem and are ready to give up. Try going to sleep with the problem still fresh in your mind, you may find that upon waking the solution will become apparent. Instead of staying up for hours on end the most beneficial thing to do could be going to bed.

Citations:

Wagner, Ullrich, Steffen Gais, Hilde Haider, Rolf Verleger, and Jan Born. "Sleep Inspires Insight." Nature 427.6972 (2004): 352-55. Print.