sleep on it – Teacher Julieta

We all know that having a good night’s sleep helps us stay healthy and alert. A good sleep is part of a productive lifestyle. That’s why it is vital to sleep well when we learn English. A lack of sleep can affect our communication and fluency negatively.

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommends 7 – 9 hours of sleep/ night for ages 18 – 64 and 7 – 8 hours of sleep/ night for ages 65+. Public Health Agency of Canada released a document about the sleeping habits of adults called “Are Canadian adults getting enough sleep?” in 2019. The report showed that 1 in 4 young adults and seniors are not getting enough sleep and 1 in 2 adults have trouble going to sleep or staying sleep.

The lack of sleep affects our productive life significantly. On a previous post I shared with you the meaning of “sleep on it” and the scientific background about this popular English idiom. Research has shown that a good night’s sleep affect the way we make decision and solve our problems. To read more about the experiment that Dr. Spencer and her research group conducted at the University of Massachusetts Amherstclick to evaluate the benefits of a good sleep click here

The medical term used to call the lack of sleep or the difficulty to stay asleep at night is insomnia. There are a lot of natural remedies and medical prescriptions to treat patients who suffer from insomnia. However, in the long run those remedies either lose their efficacy or cause dependency.

Recently, I came across with a very interesting invention to improve the quality of sleep and reduce insomnia without the negative side effect of sleeping pills. This new invention is called the “Neutonica Band”. It looks like a simple sleep mask with bluetooth. However, it’s more than that. According to its inventor, the Neutonica Band can make you sleep in about 8 minutes by placing the band around your head. The band has four black tourmalines that protect users from high frequency electromagnetic waves such as Wifi. This device also generates alpha waves and plays relaxing music to take you to a place of relaxation that help you have a better sleep all night.

The most surprising thing about this new invention to treat insomnia is not all the sophisticated mechanisms used to create the band, but the fact that it was invented by a 10 year-old Mexican genius called Franco Arturo Canseco. Franco and his tutor developed their first prototype and presented it in several Expos in Mexico and Latin America. In 2019 they participated in Shark Tank Mexico. Five Sharks decided to invest in Neutonica Band and offered Franco $124,000 USD. Currently, Fanco and a team of doctors and engineers are developing the final prototype that will be placed on the market at the beginning fo 2021.

If you want to learn more about Neutonica Band pre-sale and pre-order your band, click here. The great news is that the company has international shipping and this device may soon be helping alleviate insomnia all around the world!

What do you usually do when you have to make an important decision? Do you make your decisions quickly as a ninja or do you take some time to think about it? Let me tell you what I do when I have to make an important decision: I sleep on it. Yes, you heard right, I sleep on it!

Today I’d like to talk about an English expression: “sleep on it” I just told you that when I have to make important decision, I sleep on it. So what I mean is that I don’t rush to make the decision. Actually, I delay making a decision until the following day. I really think that it’s best to wait at least a day or two. I like to consider all the different factors and options before making a final decision. I don’t feel confident enough when I have to make a decision on the spot. Does that mean that I am stupid or incapable of making my own decision? Not really. There is scientific evidence that shows how a good night of sleep often helps when you have to make up your mind.

For centuries it has been commonly accepted that a good night’s sleep often helps when people have to make an important decision. But now scientists have backed up this notion. Research done recently by Dr. Rebeca Spencer from the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggest that a key effect of a good sleep is facilitating and enhancing complex cognitive skills such as decision-making.

Dr. Spencers’s research group investigated the effects of sleep on decision-making processes when the subjects are aware of the outcome.

Let me briefly explain to you how the experiment was set up. The researchers used a card game for their experiment. They taught 54 young people between ages of 18 to 23 to play a card game for rewards. The game mimicked casino gambling.

Participants were divided into two groups and were given a quick tutorial on how to play the game. However, the tutorial was very short so participants didn’t have enough time to learn how exactly the card game worked.

One group attended the tutorial in the morning and the other group attended the tutorial in the evening.

The 26 students who took the tutorial in the morning came back after a day of normal activities without sleep. The other 28 students who took the tutorial in the afternoon went home to a normal evening and their usual night of sleep.

Can you guess what happened?

Students returned for a second visit. In the morning or in the evening. Students who took the tutorial in the morning returned for a second visit the same day in the evening. Students who took the tutorial in the evening returned for a second visit next day in the morning.

On their second visit students played the game for a longer period of time. The objective of the second visit was that the students learned how to play the game by themselves and realized that taking cards from the four different packs gave them different results. Two of the packs had cards that helped them win while the other two packs made them lose. You may be wondering what the reward was? The reward was play money.

Students who had a normal night’s sleep returned next day and drew from the winning decks four times more than those who had spent the 12-hour break awake. On top of that, students who had slept better understood the underlying rules of the game.

The results of this experiment showed that although rule discovery is a hidden key factor, yet it is crucial to making sound decisions. These results are in accordance with common wisdom that believes that sleeping makes your decisions better. Researchers think that this has something to do with the rapid-eye-movement REM sleep, which is the creative period of our sleep cycle. However, more studies need to be performed to find out what the connection is.

If you can’t sleep well, click here to read about a new invention to treat insomnia.

When insomnia doesn’t let you sleep on it…

Well, that’s it for today it’s 9 p.m. here in Toronto and I need to go to bed. Let me know in a comment are you a ninja decision maker or do you like to sleep on it?

See you next time.

References:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110607094849.htm

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2011.00921.x

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2005818/A-good-nights-rest-really-does-help-make-important-decisions.html