Kids, get your sleep!

Architecture Student working-in a nap.

It is that time of the semester where students are pulling all-nighters in the hopes of remembering what they forced themselves to memorized hours before a test. I get it! I've been there. I understand that feeling of not having enough information and or being under-prepared all too much. Let me tell ya, it ain't worth it! Not only are you not retaining information you're forcing yourself to comprehend and contain, but ya look like hell doin it. 

Getting an adequate amount of sleep plays a beneficial roll for your memory, both before and after learning  (or relearning) a new task. Now, its not entiiiirely understood how sleep, learning, and memory, but we're working on it. And by we, I mean researchers that research stuff. Butttt, from what researchers know, sleep helps learning and your memory in two ways. First, a sleep-deprived person cannot entirely focus their attention enough to optimally learn. That means sure, you'll learn/remember something, but you aren't getting anywhere close to the most bang for your buck. Second, sleep itself has a role in the consolidation of memory, which is essential for learning new information. It is like having information of a concept as a puzzle and while you're trying to gather each puzzle piece (puzzle piece = information) you only have some of the pieces. Try putting a puzzle together without having all the pieces. You're not going have the full picture.

There's also the the quality of the sleep that you're getting and what stage of sleep you're getting to, but that's another story for another day. You just need to get some rest while you're trying to make the most of your time. I can't tell you how far a 20-minute nap here and there throughout the day have helped me during my education. Just having that 20-35/40 minute solid nap was like pressing a reset button. Any longer than about 45 minutes and I was just left wanting more which is a terrible feeling if you're already sleep deprived. Any less than 20 minutes and I felt like I was just wasting my time.

In summery, work-in a couple or however many 20-minute naps you think you will need to help you throughout the day.

Oh! Stay hydrated! Plain Water > Coffee!....Period. As much as looooovvvee coffee, I stay away from the stuff unless I feel like im just drinking coffee for pleasure and don't have much to do. First, when you drink as much coffee as I do, you don't really feel the effects so much and you're just going to have a really bad crash later. Also, no energy drinks/pills! (Again, another story for another day). Plain water is just what you need to help lubricate all those electrical signals in your brain. You can never have too much lube, right?! Well, yeah, you can, but stay hydrated and make a conscious effort to drink just enough water to keep going.