Sleeping? Is it Important?
We all know how important it is to get our daily 8 hrs of sleep. Making sure I get adequate sleep is one of my top priorities and one that I strictly follow; hmmm, most of the time. However did you know that sleeping was important for problem solving? A research done by some scientists in a controlled environment shows that “
if you didn't sleep on a problem, you missed a golden opportunity.” I have had first hand experience of this phenomenon. I have pulled my hair over some of the coding complexities, mathematical problems or IQ questions for hrs, given up, slept over it and in the morning Eureka, I have a solution. The solution will appear so simple that you would want to kill yourself for not cracking it the day before itself.
However, solutions like this don’t come easily, and after reading this, whenever you have a problem, you can’t just try for a few minutes and think to yourself, “why not let me sleep over it and tomorrow I will have a solution”. Nope, sorry guys, if that was the case anybody who gets adequate sleep will be able to solve any problem and I will be the world’s greatest problem solver.
Through my experience I have noticed, if you really put your heart and soul into trying to figure something out for hrs, finally get tired of it and go to bed while your sub conscious mind is still working on the problem, there is a greater possibility of you having a Eureka moment next morning.
“People who tackled the problem in the evening and returned refreshed after eight hours sleep were more than twice as likely to spot the shortcut as those who had stayed awake. Another group who tried the problem first in the morning, and then spent a normal eight hours of the day awake, were just as bad at spotting the trick as those who had stayed awake all night.”
I have mostly used this as a way to write simple code. If I have to solve a coding problem, and it appears too complex to me; without immediately trying to start coding that complex algorithm, I always try hard to see whether there is a simpler way of doing the same thing, and most of the time I push such things to the end of the working day, think about it, search around, think about it while going home, think about it while eating, and then go to bed and most of the time I find a simpler solution than what I had originally in my mind.
If you have not understood a single bit of this blog, may be its time for you to read it a 100 times and sleep on it
CNN: Study confirms sleep essential for creativity
Proof read by: Random Thoughts
Update: How many hours of sleep do you need
posted by 88Pro / Monday, August 23, 2004
