TGIS COORDINATOR
It is said that school and college days is supposed to be the best and the most blissful time of our life. We are shielded from the pressure to earn money and fulfill obligations in the practical world, and we have ample time to pursue our own hobbies and interests. However, for a number of students, that is not exactly the case.
Many students are under constant pressure to study and will often stay up till late night in order to complete their studies. However, research has showed that this is not the wisest thing to do. In fact, if you want to be successful person, the best thing to do is to make it a point to get enough sleep.
Leading business consultant and author Greg McKeown underscores this point in his book ‘Essentialism: the disciplined pursuit of less’. When we go to sleep, our brain classifies and organises the information we have taken in, information is processed and new neural connections are made. These new neural connections forged during sleep enable us to gain new perspectives of looking at things. Thus, after a good sleep, we are sometimes able to solve problems that we could not solve before. This is, however, only one of two lines of thought. Another theory suggest that states sleep is not directly beneficial to problem-solving per say, but instead, is of help because it keeps away disturbances that distract us from focusing on what is important.
One of the world’s richest men, and the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes it a point to get full eight hours sleep, no matter what. He says that if you reduce sleep by one hour, you could get one more hour to work, but if you are well-rested, you could get more done in the same time. “Making a small number of key decisions well is more important than making a large number of decisions. If you shortchange your sleep, you might get a couple of extra ‘productive’ hours, but that productivity might be an illusion.” says Mr Bezos.
Similarly, research by lawyer-turned-psychologist Susan Cane in her book ‘Quiet’ highlights that how we process and understand information is more important than how much information we try to take in. that said, good sleep is what enables us to better process information, so how wise is it to avoid sleep?
