The latest research suggests that while you are asleep, your brain is busily processing the day’s information. It combs through recently formed memories, stabilizing, copying, filing, and making them more useful for the next day.

A night of sleep can make memories resistant to interference from other information and allow you to recall them more effectively. It also lets your brain sift through newly formed memories, possibly even identifying what is worth keeping and what to let go of.

During sleep, your mind analyzes collections of memories, helping you discover hidden relations between seemingly random pieces of information, and helps you find the meaning in what you have learned.

It’s been discovered that you need a minimum of six hours of sleep to see an improvement in your performance over the 24 hours following a learning session.

Memories are created by altering the strengths of connections among hundreds, thousands or perhaps even millions of neurons, making certain patterns of activity more likely to recur. These patterns of activity, when reactivated, lead to the recall of a memory—whether that memory is where you left your car keys or something you’re trying to memorize.

These changes in synaptic strength are thought to arise from a molecular process known as long-term potentiation, which strengthens the connections between pairs of neurons that fire at the same time. Thus, cells that fire together wire together, locking the pattern in place for future recall.

During sleep, your brain reactivates the patterns of neural activity that it performed during the day, thus strengthening your memories by long-term potentiation.

As this unconscious rehearsing strengthens memory, something more complex is happening as well—your brain may be selectively rehearsing the more difficult aspects of a task. It seems your brain needs time to process or “rehearse” new information, connecting the dots, so to speak—and sleep provides the maximum benefit.

As exciting new findings about sleep come in more and more rapidly, it becomes more and more clear that your brain is anything but inactive during sleep.

It is now clear that sleep can consolidate memories by enhancing and stabilizing them, and by finding patterns within studied material even when you don’t know that patterns might be there. It’s also clear that skimping on sleep can interfere with crucial cognitive processes. Miss a night of sleep, and the day’s memories might be compromised.

Sources:   Scientific American

In today’s 24-hour-a-day society, it can be hard to get enough sleep, but sleep is vital to feeling and looking your best. You can get a good night’s sleep—you may just need a little bit of help. Try our tips for better sleep, and you may see an improvement in your sleeping habits.

Keep a regular sleep schedule.
Keep your biological clock steady by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day (including weekends and holidays).

Develop a sleep ritual.
Signal your body that it’s time to sleep by doing the same activities each night.

Limit caffeine and nicotine.
Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants that produce an alerting effect, which can remain in the body up to 12 hours.

Avoid Alcohol.
Alcohol may make you tired, but it actually disrupts deep sleep, causing multiple nighttime awakenings.

Associate your bed with sleep.
To strengthen the association between your bed and sleep—read, watch TV, snack, and chat on the phone someplace else.

Create an environment for sleep.
Design your sleep space with the conditions you need for sleep—quiet, dark, comfortable, and free of interruptions.

Limit time in bed.
If you do not fall asleep within 15 to 20 minutes of going to bed, it is best to get out of bed until you are feeling sleepy again.

Exercise regularly to relieve daily tension and stress.
But don’t exercise too close to bedtime, or you may get revved up instead. Finish your exercise at least 3 hours before bedtime.

Avoid late-afternoon and evening naps.
Don’t allow yourself to doze off while reading or watching television prior to bedtime—this will interfere with your quality sleep time.

Give yourself “permission” to go to bed.
As hard as it may be to turn off the TV or shut down the computer—make sleep a priority.

Don’t eat or drink too much before bedtime.
This may make you uncomfortable or have to go to the bathroom during the night.