In the article, deep sleep is defined as sleep where slow wave activity is high, and alpha wave activity is low. In one of the studies, each participant slept about 7 hours. Those in the “shallow” group experienced about 20 minutes more high alpha wave sleep per night than those in the “normal” group (meaning “normal” sleepers had more deep sleep).

The “normal” sleepers, during an image memorization task, showed higher levels of activity in their hippocampus. The “shallow” sleepers showed less activity during the same task. Participants’ memory was tested a day after the memorization task. Those who had shallow sleep the night before their memorization task scored lower on the subsequent memory test than those who had deep sleep.

In my own words: deep sleep is good for learning.

So now I’m curious – how well do I do when playing a game in Grockit after a night of poor sleep (an admittedly subjective designation) compared to a night of good sleep?

How about you? How do your “good sleep” vs. “bad sleep” sessions compare?

Thanks to The British Psychological Research Society blog for their own write up on the article, where I found first found the original Nature article.

Photo by Mayr

Reading about these routines reminds of something Malcolm Gladwell said in a recent WYNC Radiolab podcast about why he thinks Tiger Woods is less an exceptional athlete than he is an exceptional follower of routine. Tiger Woods is good at following a rigid and consistent practice routine. Gladwell jokes (I hope) that Tiger Woods is good at routinely hitting 10,000 golf balls every morning, emphasizing the benefit of being obsessive about practicing.

If you’re studying for the GMAT, playing practice games with your peers at Grockit is something you should do on a regular basis. Find people within your local community who can study with you and meet and play together daily. As a group, not only will you encourage each other to keep the routine alive, you’ll collectively learn more and help solidify your individual practice routines.

Start well in advance of your GMAT test date and learn how to be consistent, even obsessive, about practicing. Be like Tiger!

A: IMHO. Too often we are living in our memories (past) and imagination
(future). Too often our decisions are motivated by these two
non-realities. Also, a large part of human decision making is fear
motivated. I love talking to people about that because people tend to
think “Well I’m not fear motivated”, but in reality a careful
examination would show the opposite.
Fear is a sub-routine of the mind/brain that is a) very fast to load b)
very loud and c) always willing to be the solution.
The challenge is to recognize fearful thinking and use your rational
mind to mitigate it.
In this way I like to let decisions make themselves.
When you live in reality, not memory or imagination, you will often see
that the decision you have to make is purely a question of your own
intent.
What is it that you want. If you can SEE reality, you should see which
path will lead you well. The challenge, this time, is know what you
want.”