lucubration: laborious work, study, thought, etc., esp. at night.

Learning deep into the depths of the night is a well-known thing for most of us. It is a hard endeavor, we are tired and try to learn nonetheless. But is it really of any sense to do so?

Science negates this. The ideal time to learn is during day when the brain is able to absorb information – not the night, when it is supposed to regenerate. There are numerous ways to learn ideally but studying longer than one normally is awake is none of them.

The night hours and the sleep have a tremendously important task to accomplish. The brain tissue is regenerated and the information is filed and categorized during sleep – it therefore can be regarded as ‘learning while sleeping’ because this is what the brain literally does. By skipping your healthy sleep you accomplish two things:

• You lower your energy level for the next day (because of sleep deprivation)
• You deprive the brain of the possibility to store the information you want to memorize

In conclusion, you do exactly what you do not want to achieve. Be aware of this when you set out to study late hours next time

Final note: The ideal time to review the information to learn is directly before going to bed. The brain prioritizes input in inverse chronological order – the last thing you challenged your mind with is of highest priority during the sleeping hours.

Have fun learning – more on learning techniques another time
Simon

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