What is it? The food we eat? The environment? The teaching method in school?

It may be all of the above. But what I’m talking about here is much more straightforward. It’s having sufficient, high quality sleep.

This morning I had a person experience. Last night I slept for five hours, at much later than my usual hours. Before I slept I had a cup of tea.

In my Maths class this morning I made some very elementary mistakes in my calculations. Simple matrix multiplication becomes full of errors and my students jumped at it 🙂 such calculations are like second nature to a maths teacher like me but I flopped at it this morning. It’s like a NBA player forgetting how to shoot a basket.

That made me realise how slow my mind becomes when I lack sleep. The same, I believe, applies to learners of any age. Prolonged lack of sleep is known to cause health deterioration. Before it deteriorates one’s health, it will certainly stupifies one’s mind.

I found an article that seems to confirm my theory. Check it out here on point 4 http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/quality-sleep/

So, go to sleep early and don’t push your body until it screams with fatigue. You may still be up and running and be able to hang out with friends and play computer games, but you will notice that you are slower in thoughts. That’s your body’s way of protesting to you.

To get a little more of your normal brain power back, just sleep.