I want to address a somewhat random topic today, but I think it's something you'll find interesting. The topic is sleep, and the question is…Why do humans need to sleep?
Maybe it is not as random as you might initially imagine. If you're a regular WorkPuzzle reader, you might recall that we centered a series of discussions last November around how to gain a competitive advantage in recruiting by making sure that your office is a compelling place to work. I would argue that if you can continue to develop your knowledge of what makes people perform at a peak level, you'll attract the interest of the most talented individuals.
Yesterday afternoon, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Dr. John Medina. Dr. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist at the University of Washington and author of a best-selling book, called Brain Rules. As you might have guessed, he specializes in brain research. His presentation primarily focused on the latest research on the brain's need for sleep. If you've ever been forced to stay awake for many hours, you may have noticed that it isn't your body that "get's tired," it's your mind. This is true of all humans. This is why sleep deprivation is commonly used to interrogate and torture people during wars.
For many years, the prevailing thought was that sleep was an energy restoration activity… It only made sense- you feel tired when you go to sleep… So, you must need some time to rebuild your brain's energy stores, right?
The problem with this theory is that as scientists have gotten better at understanding the brain, they've discovered that the brain doesn't really rest during sleep – It is actually quite active. So, if it's not resting, what is your brain doing?
Researchers now believe the brain is learning while you sleep. Here's what happens: While you sleep, your brain goes through sleep cycles. There is a deep sleep part of the cycle that typically lasts 26 minutes. During this period, the brain is taking the information that you collected from the previous day, prioritizing it, and then replaying the important events over and over again in your mind. This replaying of events is what causes your brain to actually capture and make sense of the information. It's called learning.
The brain ends the deep cycle after 26 minutes and then wakes you up. This is called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Most people don't actually wake up during this phase, but instead are brought to near conscientiousness. Researchers believe that the brain does this as a safety mechanism. It brings you out of deep sleep back to where you're nearly awake so you can check your surroundings. If everything is OK (i.e. you brain determines you're safe), it descends back into deep sleep for another cycle.
In essence, the brain needs some time each day where it can shut off information from the outside world and just focus on learning. If the brain is deprived of this time of focus, all kinds of bad things can happen. At a minimum, the brain could develop a pattern of inefficiency for assimilating new information.
I find all of this brain research stuff very interesting. Naturally, my mind starts spinning on all the applications that can be made with these discoveries. Here are some ideas that have come to mind:
- Learning and Sleeping are Directly Connected. If we have an interest in capturing and applying important information that we've collected from a training seminar, networking meeting, or some other source, it is important to get good sleep the night after the information is presented.
- Coaching and Training. If you're responsible for coaching and training agents you may want to pay more attention to how your students are sleeping. Let's suppose you hold a sales meeting and hire a high-priced trainer to present valuable information to your agents. For fun, you then host an evening activity that encourages your agents to stay out late and party a little bit. Probably a bad idea if your hope was for your agents to retain the training material.
- Become the Expert on Peak Performance. We've talked the last couple of weeks about building your employment brand. Part of your brand should involve having a reputation for helping those around you perform at a high level. Understanding how to capture and assimilate new information is critical in this pursuit.
There are many more ideas worth considering in this realm. As a starting point, I would recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Medina's book on brain rules. It would probably be a great thing to read before going to bed…
Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.
