M.best to sleep on it. For real. When the head is full of thoughts, instead of struggling for hours on questions and hypotheses, it is better to go to bed. “It is common experience that a difficult problem in the evening is solved in the morning, after the sleep committee has worked on it,” wrote novelist John Steinbeck.
On the ridge between dream and wakefulness the brain ignites with creative sparks, say the most recent studies (photo by Mary Fix / Gallery Stock).
And today neuroscientists understand why: during the night, thoughts are restructured, rearranged and, when we wake up, we have a different vision of things. This is confirmed by a Canadian study that has just appeared on Cerebral Cortex.
With the advent of the capitalist economy and with the misconception that staying in bed is wasted, useless time, we have gradually devalued sleep. But the less we sleep, the less lucid we are.
The night brings advice, according to popular wisdom.
The brain works for us at night
It is known from the recording of the brain waves of sleeping people that the brain continues to function. What does it do? Process the information accumulated throughout the day. While we unplug the world, it works to clean up the confiscated material, to fix the memories, to find new connections between the fragments of memories.
We imagine having to commit ourselves to finding a key to a dilemma, to choose between one option or the other by doing the wee hours with a list of pros and cons, searching the Net, discussing with friends.
Maybe we are struggling uselessly, because the spark will strike with our eyes closed and will illuminate us as if by magic in the first sun. “Man in the night turns on a light for himself,” said Heraclitus.
The revelations that surprise us upon awakening according to the ancients were the work of the gods, which crept into the dreams of mortals. It is said that Alexander the Great founded the city of Smyrna following a nocturnal suggestion.
Both the non-REM and the REM phases appear to contribute to the thought review processesin which the eyes begin to move rapidly (hence the name Rapid eye movement) and in which most of the dream activity is concentrated.
“When brains dream” by Robert Stickgold and Antonio Zadra (“When brains dream”).
You can have brilliant ideas
When we fall asleep, the brain sorts the elements collected in the previous hours. And it does so with method, as theorizes Robert Stickgold, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston and author with Antonio Zadra of the very recent American best seller. When brains dream (When brains dream).
In the mare magnum of actions and notions of the day, identify what has an emotional buzz, which was preceded, accompanied or followed by an emotion: it is the indication of an event that was important to us and that must be memorized and connected to something else.
Fear, joy, sadness, anger, disgust, or surprise we felt are like tags of a post on Instagram, labels to make a recognition in the mental network of the events or ideas that have struck us.
Two elements, according to Stickgold, make it possible for the brain to help us in the original solutions. The first is that the prefrontal cortex is shut downthe party that manages decisions, that plans complex behaviors, that controls impulses and social conduct.
It means that the categories in which to classify the pieces and are no longer valid images and words can float free to associate without the critical presence of rationality.
The second element is inhibition of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter which improves the concentration on immediate and concrete problems: therefore it is excellent that it circulates while awake, but its nocturnal absence diverts us from the details, from the attention and leads us towards ideas that can be brilliant.
Without the conscious ego to watch over, the brain connects the mental tiles composing mosaics that otherwise would not have existed. “The result is that the next day you suddenly wake up thinking that you don’t want to take that job or that you can propose a new project,” says Stickgold. “It may seem like a visceral decision, but the truth is that Something has changed in your head since you went to sleep“.
In the morning the Eureka effect
Among the first to prove with an experiment that the brain comes to the rescue with problem solving during sleep were the British researchers at Lancaster University (the results on Memory & Cognition).
Unbeknownst to us, bridges are built between neurons that lead us out of mental turmoil or who surprise us with intuitions for which we exclaim: “I have found”.
By opening our eyes wide in the morning, we can have the so-called “Eureka effect”, the sudden understanding of a concept that seemed inextricable.
“Sleep, by restructuring the memory, facilitates the extraction of knowledge»Reads a study on Nature of 2004. And in a research of the Sorbonne in Paris, just published on Science Advancesbrain activity in the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness is shown to ignite creative sparks.
The anecdotal is full of examples. Paul McCartney related that the melody of Yesterdayone of the most famous songs of all time, came to him when he woke up. Larry Page, on the other hand, owes Google’s invention to the prodigies of rest.
To make anxious thoughts fly away
“Busy people feel like their heads are filled with a jumble of facts throughout the day, like a stuffed mailbox,” Stickgold says. “But if they sleep on it, they will feel less burdened by events. Much of the excess detail will be gone and the important passages will seem clearer ».
Staying awake thinking about a problem doesn’t work. Let alone go to bed and turn and turn the questions: the solution does not come and sleep goes away.
Stickgold suggests adopting techniques to recognize the thought that haunts us, isolate it and send it away imagining attaching it to a flying balloon or putting it on a boat that goes out on the river. If you are worried about forgetting a particular idea, the advice is to write it down on a piece of paper to review it in the morning.
What you shouldn’t do is stay sleepless brooding or get up in the middle of the night to work on a problem.: you only end up being exhausted.
“We must learn to consider questions as a gift,” explains the psychiatrist. “We are preparing the brain to work for us for 7-8 hours while the body rests.”
“Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker
The advantages of rest
It sounds like an oxymoron to talk about scientific research about neuronal labor during sleep. Science, after all, is about what is observable, quantifiable, verifiable, and it seems impossible to enter someone else’s head, even while sleeping.
It is true that many mechanisms still remain mysterious and some theories are hypotheses to be explored, but it is also true that scholars use state-of-the-art instruments and that they cross measurements with experiments and questionnaires.
A fact on which there is now general agreement is that sleep is essential. Evolution would not have favored such a dangerous activity, in which we are helpless and disconnected from reality, if it had not been of great help for survival.
It cannot be a coincidence that so many animals (perhaps all of them) devote huge portions of their lives to sleep. Even jellyfish sleepdespite having no brains, and appear more tired the next day if disturbed during their break.
In his book Why We Sleep(Why do we sleep) neuroscientist Matthew Walker begins with a list of benefits for the world’s most natural, oldest and most common drug: ‘Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. Improve your memory, make you more attractive. It keeps you slim and reduces the craving for food. It protects you from cancer and dementia. Prevents colds and flu. It reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes, not to mention diabetes. You will also feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious. Are interested?”.
If so, good nights.
Eliana Liotta (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Eliana Liotta is a journalist, writer and science writer. On iodonna.it and on the main platforms (Spreaker, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast) you will find his podcast series The good that I want.
All the articles by Eliana Liotta.
iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED