Why you should get 8 hours of sleep a night?

Sleep is important for several reasons, and an international team of researchers has added a new incentive to getting 8 hours of sleep each night: it helps the brain store and learn a new language.

The study, conducted at the University of South Australia, found that coordinating two electrical events in the sleeping brain significantly improves the ability to remember new words and complex grammar rules.

The importance of 8 hours of sleep

In an experiment conducted on 35 English speakers, researchers tracked the brain activity of participants who learned a mini-language called Mini Pinyin, which is based on Mandarin Chinese, but with similar grammar to English.

According to "Medical Express", half of the participants learned Mini Pinyin in the morning and then returned in the evening to test their memory. The other half learned Mini Pinyin in the evening and then slept in the lab overnight while their brain activity was recorded.

Better learning performance

The researchers tested their progress in the morning. Those who slept performed significantly better at learning the language than those who stayed awake.

“The sleep-related improvements were associated with the coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles, brainwave patterns that synchronize during non-rapid eye movement sleep,” said lead researcher Dr. Zacharias Cross.

“This coupling likely reflects the transfer of learned information from the hippocampus to the cortex, enhancing long-term memory storage,” Cross added.

“Neural activity after sleep showed unique patterns of theta oscillations associated with cognitive control and memory consolidation, suggesting a strong link between sleep-induced brainwave coordination and learning outcomes,” he continued.

The study underscores the importance of sleep in learning complex grammar, said Dr. Scott Cousins.

“We provide a new perspective on how sleep disruption affects language learning,” Cousins ​​added. “Sleep is not just rest; it is an active, transformative state of the brain.”

The findings could help inform treatments for people with language impairments, including autism spectrum disorder, aphasia, and those with more severe sleep disorders.