Sleep is important, you cannot survive without it. People pride themselves on a lack of sleep, however, as the world gets more knowledgeable about sleep this is wrong-headed. Sleep cannot be understated, you need to get it if you plan on being at the top of your game. It is critical for you to get at least 6 hours of sleep every night. Proper sleep promotes knowledge retention and allows you to keep your complete attention throughout the day.
All the knowledge in the world means nothing if you don’t keep it. Your value to the important people in your life is often based on how much you know as well as how you communicate it. I often notice when I don’t sleep, I lose the ability to come up with facts and figure any structure. The result is a lack of confidence from the people around me and a lack of control on my part. It doesn’t look good, and I seem like I didn’t do my homework. Your brain does a cleanup at night. It takes everything you took in that day, whether it be from experience,book, or conversation, and begins the process of sorting it. If you don’t sleep long enough, you don’t get the benefit of this process, and most of the things you learned that day go away.
Your attention is important, especially if you want to learn anything. We all know how it feels out of sorts, staring into space to try to understand what is happening in front of us. It all seems like gibberish, the “huh” moment. It feels like wasted time, and it essentially is. What is the point of sitting and learning things you can give your attention. Like knowledge retention, getting enough REM sleep is known to give relief and allow the attention to get better.
IF you miss at least 6 hours of sleep, then it is like driving a car without proper maintenance. It runs, and no one will know the difference, but you are eventually will head for a breakdown. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and sleep helps your body in all types of ways, especially when keeping your attention and retention. Your sharpness depends on your sleep, and without it, you are going half speed.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 