The way to increase efficiency on a day when you don’t sleep well is to think in your head that you slept well.
Many people have had the experience of getting under the covers at the end of the day, exhausted, but unable to sleep because of trivial concerns, and then going online to find out how to get a good night’s sleep. I think there are many people who have had this experience. In such cases, it seems to improve your performance by believing in your head that you slept well.
Study: Believing You’ve Slept Well, Even If You Haven’t, Improves Performance – Julie Beck – The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/study-believing-you-ve-slept-well-even-if-you-haven-t-improves-performance/283305/
Researchers at the University of Colorado have published the results of a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology that tested the effects of making people believe that they have slept enough. The study, called “placebo sleep” by the researchers after the placebo effect, found that the awareness of not having slept enough contributes to poor performance during the day, and that if you want to get through the day comfortably, it is better to forget about it altogether, even if you are sleep deprived. If you want to have a comfortable day, it is better to forget about it completely, even if you are sleep deprived.
What is the process that led to this research result?
◆Experimental Methods
First, the subjects were asked to indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 how much deep sleep they had last night. Next, the researcher gives a 5-minute lesson on the effects of sleep on cognitive function, telling them that this lesson is necessary knowledge for the study.
During the lesson, the researcher will also give them the false information that “adults spend 20-25% of their sleep time in REM sleep, and if they spend less than this percentage in REM sleep, they will perform poorly on learning and other tests, and conversely, if they spend more than 25% of their sleep time in REM sleep, they will perform better on tests.” They also gave them information.
The subjects were then connected to a device to measure pulse, heart rate, and brain waves, and told, “This device will measure how much REM sleep you had last night. In reality, however, they only measured the subject’s brain waves.
The test was then administered by telling each subject that he or she lied about the amount of REM sleep he or she had received, ranging from 16.2% to 28.7% REM sleep. The tests included tests of hearing and processing speed, which are most associated with sleep deprivation. In order to reduce bias in the experimental results, these tests were repeated on multiple subjects.
◆Experimental Results
Subjects who were told they had above-average REM sleep duration (25% or more of REM sleep) performed well on the test, while those who were told they had below-average REM sleep duration (less than 20% of REM sleep) performed only below-average on the test. They performed below average on the test.
The results of this study show that by believing in one’s mind that one has slept well, one can improve performance even with a sleep-deprived brain. Conversely, this also suggests that if a person constantly appeals that he or she has not slept, such as “I only slept for two hours,” the person’s performance will probably decline.