Matthew Walker

the more sleep spindles an individual has at night, the greater the restoration of overnight learning ability come the next morning.

NREM-sleep spindles is especially rich in the late-morning hours, sandwiched between long periods of REM sleep.

Sleep six hours or less and you are shortchanging the brain of a learning restoration benefit that is normally performed by sleep spindles.

whether early school start times, which throttle precisely this spindle-rich phase of sleep, are optimal for the teaching of young minds.

he more deep NREM sleep, the more information an individual remembered the next day.

The Sound of Silence.” Perhaps you know the song and lyrics. Simon and Garfunkel describe greeting their old friend, darkness (sleep).

Said another way, forgetting is the price we pay for remembering.

the function of REM-sleep dreaming was to remove unwanted or overlapping copies of information in the brain: what he termed “parasitic memories.” It was a fascinating idea, but it remained just that—an idea—for almost thirty years, receiving no formal examination

the most repeated and entrusted teaching edict: practice makes perfect. Not so, it seemed. Perhaps it was practice, with sleep, that makes perfect

daytime naps that contain sufficient numbers of sleep spindles also offer significant motor skill memory improvement, together with a restoring benefit on perceived energy and reduced muscle fatigue.