Sleep can promote insight and problem-solving, so get more of it

Getting enough sleep is good for you in so many ways. For example, getting enough sleep is necessary to help you recover and repair muscles after your workouts. Another function of sleep may be demonstrated by the many accounts of how it has helped people to come up with some innovative and creative solutions to problems they were wrestling with, whether consciously or not.

• John Steinbeck once wrote, It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee hass worked on it
• Paul McCartney reported that as a 22-year-old in 1965, he dreamed the melody of the song Yesterday, and played it on the piano immediately on waking
• Katherine Mansfield had an unusual dream experience through the eyes of a 5 year-old boy – this became her successful short story, Sun and Moon
• Frederick Banting reportedly dreamed of a way to isolate insulin, and therefore make diabetes treatable
• When we have a problem that we need time to sort out, we say that we will sleep on it.

A conversation with Rachel on Twitter made me reflect on research that I knew about on how sleep can help to promote insight and problem solving. Insight signifies a restructuring that leads to a sudden gain of knowledge that is explicit and able to be articulated, and that leads to a change in behaviour. Sleep seems to have the effect of consolidating recent memories and could therefore allow insight by changing or shuffling their representational structures. This reconfiguration could underlie the Aha! moment that we sometimes have when we wake – the problem that we went to bed thinking about now seems to have a possible solution.

In one experiment, researchers asked participants to transform a sequence of 8 digits to a new sequence by applying two simple rules. As the participants got practice at the task, they got faster at it. However, unbeknownst to the participants, there was an additional ‘hidden’ rule which wasn’t mentioned, and was therefore processed at an implicit level of awareness. The participants seem to get this hidden rule suddenly, or develop insight into it, and this was shown by a sudden shift in moving from a sequential, iterative response to jumping to the final solution in advance. Once the participants had training on the task, the training period was followed by 8 hour intervals of either 8 hours of nocturnal sleep, 8 hours of nocturnal wakefulness or 8 hours of daytime wakefulness.

When tested again on blocks of the learning tasks those participants who had slept seemed show insight into the hidden rule at almost double the probability of the wakefulness groups. Sleep seems to facilitate insight into rules that explicitly hidden from us – we seem to be able to make the leap to solve the problem much better once we have slept. Dreams seem like they might be important in this process in that they might help to reformulate problems in ways we can’t fathom when we are awake. They may help us to reconceptualise the problems before us, the issues we are wrestling with in different ways, enabling insight.

So, the next time you are up working late on a problem, and the solution isn’t coming to you, go to bed and get some sleep. Chances are that you’re more likely to have found a way forward after having slept than staying up all night continuing to work on the problem. And your body will love you for it too.

Wanting to be in control is perfectly normal – but sometimes, it just doesn’t work

All this stuff I write about noticing, accepting, being mindful. It can be hard to get your head around, and even if that isn’t a problem, it can be tricky to practice in our everyday lives.

The truth is that we are all in the same boat. Most of the things that you do – think about the future when you could be experiencing now, losing connection with the present, trying not to think about thoughts and emotions that trouble us – are all things that I do at times. Almost everyone does.

We all get caught up in the same agenda. We live in a society where we are convincingly sold a myth that we should feel good all the time – we get this from all angles. And everyone likes to feel good – no-one likes to feel bad. So we try to get rid of unpleasant feelings. And we keep on doing it, even though it doesn’t work in the long run and we often end up struggling and suffering as a result.

There are a few reasons as to why we do this:

1. We buy into the myth that humans are naturally happy and we should feel great most of the time
2. Because when we do try to control our thoughts and feelings in the short-term, quite often it actually works. So we try this as a long-term strategy too.
3. We think that this works for other people, so we must be doing it wrong. If we keep on trying, we will get it right, like everyone else seems to.
4. And this is the main reason above all – this is the way our mind has developed to solve problems. The essence of a problem is that it is something we don’t want. And a solution means to avoid it, or get rid of it. In the physical world, that works really well. Stray dog trying to steal your picnic? Get rid of it: shoo it away, or throw a stick at it. Crap weather? Well, you can’t get rid of that, but you can avoid it – stay indoors, or wear protective clothing. Dry ground, no good for farming? You can choose to plant elsewhere, or get rid of it by irrigation. So, our mind is like a problem-solving machine which is great for the external world, and it is very good at it. So if it is very good at the material world, it is only natural that our mind tries to do the same with our internal world – the world of thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories and urges. What we learn is that what we try in the external world only works in our internal world in the short-term, if at all. And often, even if it does work, we end up creating a lot of pain and struggle for ourselves in the process.

Do you think you can control what happens in your internal world? Completely?

Try this:

• Take a second and remember how you navigated to this web page today. Done that? Ok, now delete that memory. Wipe your history. Just get rid of it.

How did you get on? You can’t completely get rid of it. Try another one.

• Imagine that I have recruited you to a completely unethical experiment where I have wired you up to a lie detector. This detector will detect the tiniest bit of anxiety in your body. You can’t kid it at all. Even the teensiest hint of anxiety, and the bells will sound. And in this experiment, you’re not allowed to feel even a mere hint of anxiety. And if you do, I’ll pull the lever and you will be electrocuted. What would happen?

You can’t control what you feel. Not completely. Ask yourself, why are you continuing the struggle?

If it is because you don’t know what else to do, think again. There is plenty you can do. Flick through some of the pages of this blog, elsewhere on the web, or consider developing a coaching relationship.

Tune into the lighter side

Lots of things happen in our lives that we take pretty seriously. And sometimes, that is totally appropriate. But taking every little setback to heart can seriously deplete your energy.

A problem-solving state of mind can help us to try to do everything we can to resolve a bad situation. But once we get to the point where we can do no more, or we run up against barriers or setbacks, that problem-solving state of mind isn’t so helpful any more. In fact, we can end up trying to change things that aren’t so easily changed, which is a recipe for worry, anxiety and frustration.

At this point, the most helpful thing you can do is to seek out ways to try to flip yourself out of this problem-solving state of mind. Humour and laughter are brilliant for this. Your mind perceives the world differently when you aren’t weighed down by negative emotions like worry and anxiety. You can see what’s going on in a difficult situation much more easily when you’re able to tune into the lighter side of life. That’s why comedians and sitcoms are so popular. It gives you a way of observing the absurdities of every day life from a lighter perspective. Being able to laugh at them, and with them, can feel great.

How can you find a way to tune into the lighter side? I carry around a few comedy shows and podcasts on my phone / laptop etc which I can tune into every now and again. A good laugh helps me to forget what I was worrying about and helps me to reset. Sharing a joke or funny stories is another good way to flip your mind out of problem-solving mode when you notice it isn’t working for you, as is catching up with friends at the end of the day. But be mindful that is doesn’t turn into a rehash of problem-solving and trying to figure out why something didn’t work. Don’t forget that flipping your mind to the lighter side can give you a fresh perspective.

Let me know what you think, or what has worked for you in trying to flip to the lighter side.