Written by Lysette Offley, Genius Material
Going short on sleep does you no favours whatsoever. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration, working memory and alertness all suffer. IQ scores also fall.
Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego, points out that staying awake for 21 hours reduces your level of ability to a similar level to when you’re drunk!
While many of us may not stay awake for 21 hours in one stretch, how many of us have had two or three late nights and early mornings on the trot? Because that has the same effect!
Conversely, people sleeping an extra hour or two perform much better than they normally do in tasks needing sustained attention, such as taking an exam.
And of course, being able to concentrate harder means that your overall mental performance is better. If you’re able to boost your power of attention, everything else improves too.
You need good quality sleep to allow your brain to process new memories and to practise new skills. Your brain even solves problems for you while you’re asleep. So if you’re trying to learn some new information, as you do when you revise, try studying for a couple of hours, taking regular breaks during that time, and then going to sleep. You’d be better off doing that than slogging through the night.
Because, while you’re asleep your brain continues to work for you, reactivating the circuits it was using when you were studying and moving those new memories into long-term storage.
That means that the next day all that information will be there for you – you’ll have a better memory for what you’re trying to recall.
Of course if you’re trying to revise for an exam it’s very important to revisit that information the next day after you’ve slept on it or pretty soon you’ll forget it anyway.
Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, is one of the many advocates of taking a nap after training of any sort, and points out that as well as helping you develop a better memory for your studies, it applies to any skills, such as learning to play a new videogame, playing the piano, driving the car or playing tennis.
There are other benefits too. You can solve problems and have flashes of insight in your sleep. The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev purportedly created the structure of the periodic table in a dream after spending all day struggling with how it all fitted together.
And, as the story goes, in 1862, Here Kekulé woke up from a daydream in which he saw a snake biting its own tail forming a continuous circle, and realised that this must be the shape of a benzene molecule – the very problem he’d been challenged by for some time previously. (This also lends weight to the contention that in some circumstances at least, imagination is more important than knowledge.)
So, if you want to develop a better memory and get the most out of your brain, if you’re revising for exams and want to give yourself the best chance of remembering what you’ve studied, all the research points towards the benefits of shorter bouts of revision, punctuated by regular naps.
The perfect excuse for sleeping on the job if ever I heard one!
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Mr Homer joined the PNLD in 1995 and was turned down for promotion and more money because he did not have a degree.
I had this argument with the CII, this was my case: 1987 - Honours degree in Applied Maths from Liverpool University 1989 - MBA from Manchester Business School Plus 1993 - Full FPC 2000 - G10 CII orginally said that my degree and MBA did not count because they were more than 10 years old. Then they have recently changed their mind and said that todays syllabus for the degree and MBA are not compatable. Let me say two things: 1. the degree and MBA were far more difficult to pass in the 80's than today 2. Ironically most of what is covered in the CII R0, J0 and AF papers on tax, trust and investment theory was covered in my MBA. Yet still they do not class my level 7 as being adequate to allow any exemptions. Funny enough I interviewed a Chartered Financial Planner, who had sat every exam available. I asked her two questions, what was a Section 21 Order and state the formula for Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM for those in the know). Have a guess what the answer to each question was, yes you guessed it she did not know. Have a guess what, I did, but according to the CII I am only level 3 so couldn't possible know that sort of stuff. What was even more alarming was she didn't even know how to calculate Sharpe and Alpha Ratios. Come on surely a thicky like me can't know more than a Chatered Financial Planner who has sat and passed every CII exam. But as the CII quite rightly point out, they don't test your knowledge, they test whats in the study text - I'll use that one the next time the FSA say I have been negligent in not carrying out more in depth due diligence on toxic products, I just point out that it wasn't in the study text for that product.
Thanks for your comments Bob. Interesting to read that you saw younger students struggling with the application but being good at the 'remembering' part. I imagine the opposite may well be true for older students. I also agree with your point about looking up certain items. I guess it's true of exams across the board whether it be financial services, law, medicine etc, that there are just some things that you'll always look up, even if you do think you know the particular fact you need! In every exam I have ever sat (not just financial services), I have always thought it ridiculous that you have to memorise certain information - some of it you'd look up in 'real life', and other bits you'd never need to know so why stick it in your head in the first place?! Catriona.
It is all very well stating that you should keep qualifications up to date, however it becomes harder as the years go by. I am now aged 58 have both G60 and G20 but needed 30 points to attain diploma status. I did both JO5 and JO4 passing one in October and awaiting the result for the other. I thought that I would do exams which were useful to me rather than exams for exams sake. I have used your revision/question material which I have found very good and I also attended a CII two day revision course which was OK but the tutor taught more of what she wished to rather than what was actually going to be in the syllabus and past exam questions. Lots of calculations etc. I found the exam extremely hard (Pension Funding Options) however it was interesting to see the younger students on the CII course struggle with the application skills but good at remembering pure fact. It is an unfair situation where we have to learn and regurgitate all this fact when only a fool when giving advice would not look up such items. It will be interesting come RDR whether or not anyone decides to put their employer in the dock over unfair dismissal if they do not have the qualifications. We wait and see.