Sleep, Focus and Cognitive Performance
Do you wake up feeling exhausted? Or have trouble concentrating at work? Or maybe your tolerance levels are lower than usual. It might be you are not getting enough sleep.
Cognitive performance is our ability to utilise the knowledge acquired by the mental processes in our brains. A well-functioning brain controls a range of voluntary and involuntary actions, such as our sleep-wake cycle, attention, perception, mood, emotions, hunger and memory.
When you lose sleep, it interferes with the functioning of certain brain areas and people who are exposed to Sleep Deprivation usually experience a decline in cognitive performance, changes in mood, decreased reaction times, loss in free recall and in facial recognition.
While losing sleep here and there won’t have much affected, ongoing loss of sleep can have a big impact over time and can impair our ability to do well in school, at work, and in our daily life. Sleep Deprivation can make it significantly harder to focus, and pay attention and be productive. This affects school performance and job productivity.
A lack of sleep can also slow your reaction time, which makes for dangerous driving and other safety-related risks at work and at home. This can put not only your life in danger but others as well.
We also need a good sleep to achieve our best innovative thinking and problem-solving abilities. As you sleep, memories are reactivated, connections between brain cells are strengthened, and the information is transferred from short to long-term. Without enough quality sleep, we can easily forget new information, old information and even memories. Getting a good night’s sleep can be crucial for school and university students throughout their semesters.
If you’re having trouble with any of the cognitive abilities mentioned above, you maybe not getting enough sleep. Work at increasing the hours of sleep you get a night. Everyone is different as to how many hours you should get. We have lots of tips on how to improve your quality of sleep in our Ritualize program, with an entire Quest dedicated to it and a Learn section within the app accessible at all times. Check it out and set yourself the challenge of increasing the hours you get a night, and see if you notice any improvements in your work, school and daily life. Good luck!
References:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/387c/4ba8b0a5bd5533a52d63a2324f02d0183797.pdf
https://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-lack-sleep-impacts-cognitive-performance-and-focus
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/
https://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer
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