According to Dr Ines Wilhelm of the University of Tubingen’s Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, studies of adults have shown that sleeping after learning supports the long-term storage of material learned. In the study published by Dr Wilhelm in 2013, it was found that children’s brains can transform subconscious learning into explicit knowledge while they sleep – more effectively than the brains of adults.
The study involved examining the ability of test subjects to form explicit knowledge through an implicitly learned motor task. The test subjects were comprised of children aged 8 to 11, and young adults. They learned to guess the predetermined series of actions, without being aware of the existence of the sequence. One group had a night’s sleep before being tested on the sequence, while another group only had a day’s rest. The group which had a night’s rest could remember a larger number of elements from the row of numbers, compared to those who remained awake in the day. Children were able to perform better than the adults at this.
In a preliminary study by the Douglas Research Centre, 34 students between the ages of 7 and 11 were divided into two groups. One group was put to bed slightly earlier while another group stayed up about 54mins past their bed time. All students were healthy and did not have sleep problems, behaviour issues or academic issues. Through 1 week of test, the group which was sleep-deprived reported more impulsive and irritable behaviour than the group which received more rest.
On a personal note, I studied hard and lost precious sleep throughout my two years of study at Temasek JC, averaging only 5-6 hours of rest every day. Despite the work put in, I only managed 4 distinctions for my A levels. I had the privilege of meeting 3 scholars (two with 7 distinctions, one with 8 distinctions at the A levels) during my time in the army. They graduated from VJC, Hwa Chong Institution and ACJC. After probing them repeatedly about their secret for academic success, the element of ‘having 7-8hrs of regular sleep’ and 'paying full attention in class' were striking commonalities among all three. This convinced me to sleep a lot more during my NUS days, and the second upper class honours I attained is due in no small part to the better focus I enjoyed in class with the adequate rest.
Dr Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children’s National Medical Centre (Washington), says “we know that sleep deprivation can affect memory, creativity, verbal creativity and even things like judgement and motivation and being (engaged) in the classroom. When you are sleepy, (being engaged) is not going to happen.” Dr Owens adds that sleep is considered one of the building blocks of your child’s health, well-being and academic success. “It is the equivalent of good nutrition, exercise and all the things we try to foster and provide for our children.”
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