HealthyGamerGG - The Science of Learning While you Sleep

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Today we're going to talk about how to study or be cognitively productive in your sleep. It sounds weird but it is totally possible.  Check out HG coaching: https://bit.ly/47dF7rF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Want to get started? Head to CarMax.com for details and get pre-qualified today. Want to drive? CarMax. Hey, y'all. Today we're going to talk about how to study or be cognitively productive in your sleep. And I know that sounds kind of unbelievable, but when I was wandering around India trying to become a monk, I learned a lot of weird esoteric meditation techniques. And I got so curious about some of this stuff that I ended up becoming a neuroscience researcher

and eventually a psychiatrist. And through those experiences, I really started to figure out, okay, like, how does this work scientifically? So today we're going to teach you a meditation technique. that will help you sort of direct your mind while you sleep. You can sort of point your mind in a particular direction, and it'll kind of work on autopilot. And we're also going to lean on a lot of what we know from sleep research

about how to optimize this process so that it can happen for you consistently. Hey, just a quick note. A lot of people will ask us, what do I do next? And that's why we built Dr. Kay's Guide. It's a comprehensive resource that distills over 20 years of my experience, both as a monk and as a psychiatrist. And it's designed in a way that's tailored to fit your needs. So if you're interested in better understanding your mind and taking control of your life,

check out the link below. So let's start by understanding the science of sleep. So when we sleep, our brain does two major things. The first thing that it does is something called memory consolidation. So as we start learning stuff throughout the day, it actually fills up something called our short-term memory. And stuff in our short-term memory gets consolidated into our long-term memory. term memory through this part of our brain called the hippocampus while we sleep.

So this function of memory consolidation happens while we sleep. And you can sort of think about this as like, let's say I'm working on like a paper or something. Let's say I'm writing a paper, I'm drawing something on the computer. So right now this information is stored in my computer's RAM, but in order to store it to the hard drive, I have to like save it, right? And once it's stored to the hard drive, I can close it and I can recall it. if it gets wiped from my RAM before I ever save it, then I'll sort of lose the information. And if we kind of think about what happens in our brain when we sleep when it comes to memory,

that's the time in which our brain learns. So as we study, everything fills up our RAM. And this is why when we sleep, like, that sort of information will kind of get consolidated and it'll be easier to remember. A simple example of, like, how this is effective is you can think about, okay, if I study one hour a day, for 14 days. versus 14 hours on one day, in which scenario will I actually know more? One hour a day for 14 days will absolutely beat 14 hours on one day.

But the question is why? It's the same amount of studying. The difference is that in one case, we're leveraging memory consolidation, and in another case, we're not leveraging memory consolidation. So this is really important to understand. The next thing that we have to understand is that during sleep, our brain not only learns, it actually goes through a process called D-learning. Now, this was something that was discovered by researchers at Harvard University in

1983. So, like, a lot of the old sleep research is actually where a lot of the cool stuff is. So these researchers discovered something really important, which is that when we go to sleep, our brain actually focuses on getting rid of certain kinds of information or especially emotional experiences. And that there's actually a hierarchy, that as long as we are sort of emotionally activated, our brain will prioritize de-learning. over learning. So we also see this kind of clinically, and Sigmund Freud was actually the first person who figured this out. He sort of noticed that the experiences that we have during the day will shape the dreams that we have at night.

That what our brain does at night is tied to what happens to us during the day. And a really important observation that he and Jung sort of made this observation as well, is that when we have a negative emotional experience during the day, our mind will spend that night trying to process that emotion and clean it out. And let's understand why this is. So if I have some kind of negative emotional experience, processing it while I am conscious will be painful, right? So if I got like bullied by someone and I start thinking about the bullying or process the

bullying during the day, all of that pain will arise. So our brain has learned a really interesting evolutionary thing, which is, hey, we're going to actually process emotions while you're zonked out. And you may have noticed this as well, that if you're, If you go to bed one night and you're kind of upset, oftentimes you will feel better in the morning. So the question is, hold on a second. Where did those negative emotions go? Why do you feel better?

Is it just because you're rested and your brain has like sort of cleared adenosine? It's actually way more than that. There's this emotional processing going on, which people kind of coined as de-learning because it's kind of getting rid of stuff. And we also see this in clinical psychotherapy. So if you look at people who have PTSD, what happens to people at PTSD? They have a very traumatic experience. And one of the diagnostic features of PTSD is actually nightmares. It is the most common, like, sleep experience for people with PTSD.

And so what is the correlation between being traumatized during the day and having nightmares at night? Well, it's because what happens is we have all of those emotions, which in people with PTSD, they will suppress using cognitive mechanisms like dissociation, and then those emotions will manifest in their sleep. And we also know from like clinical studies on psychotherapy that as you heal these people through things like psychotherapy, as we talk about that and emotionally processed during the day, their nightmares actually improve over time. So the second thing to really understand about the science of sleep is that if your brain has to do some kind of de-learning or getting rid of stuff, it will prioritize that over memory consolidation. So now let's move on to the core meditation technique. So I was learning this technique called a yoga nidra. And Yoga Nidra, it's really weird the way that I learned this technique.

So I was at an ashram, and there was a guy who I went to him and I said, hey, like, you know, I'm interested in learning meditation. He was like, okay, what are your goals? And I said, well, basically, like, I'm kind of a screw up in life. And I want to stop being a screw up. I want to like just basically become a Chad version of myself. And he was like, okay, fine. I'm going to teach you a technique called Yoga Nidra. And so what this technique is basically about is inducing a state of a trance.

So if we sort of think about how our conscious mind works, we have like conscious waking, and then we have kind of deep sleep where we're completely unaware. But what this person sort of helped me learn is this technique that helps you essentially go far into sort of the sleep state, but while remaining conscious. So you're essentially like consciously aware while you are sleeping. And this is kind of like lucid dreaming, but if we sort of think about where lucid dreaming lives, lucid dreaming is like active. of the mind, right? So you're experiencing lots of things and you're kind of consciously aware. But the state of yoga nidra is actually deeper than lucid dreaming because there's no conscious activity up here. So your mind is actually completely empty and yet you retain awareness. If it sounds really weird and you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's okay.

It's something that you really have to experience. So it's kind of like being submerged where unless you've actually been underwater, it's impossible to describe. So the goal of the yoga nither technique is to essentially put your body into a deep, deep state of relaxation and induce a no mind state where you retain that conscious awareness. And so this is something called the hypno-yogic state, and it's kind of the state of a trance. The cool thing is that once you start entering that trance, you can kind of like direct your subconscious mind or your sleeping mind in a particular direction. And the purpose that I was using this technique for was to kind of like rewrite some of my like personality structure and it worked pretty well, I guess, who knows,

really. But what I sort of did is I became proficient in this technique. And as I became proficient in the technique, I started to notice that I started to like function better in my sleep. Even when I was in med school, I only studied like two hours a day, but somehow wound up like getting this award for academic achievement, for being at the top of my class. And how did I do that? It's because actually a lot of the time while I was sleeping, my mind was like reviewing information. I would wake up the next day and I would like know stuff. It was really bizarre. And y'all may have actually experienced this too. I've actually had a ton of patients who've experienced this in some way where your mind can kind of review those sort of things that are important to you. And the question is,

how do we cultivate this? So the bedrock of that is yoga nidra. And at the end, we'll sort of give you all more information about the practice. It takes about half an hour to teach you. So we're not going to teach it in this video, but we absolutely have resources that you can kind of go through a guided version. okay? So I would say that you need to do yoga nidhar for anywhere between a week, but realistically, like honestly three months, because this whole weird like developing a trance and directing your subconscious stuff, you can't do overnight. Or I've never been able to teach anyone how to do it overnight. Okay? So it's going to take some time. So practice yoga nithra. But there are a couple of other things that we need to understand scientifically to help us optimize this process. So the first is

going back to learning and de-learning. So when it comes to learning, how can we optimize our short-term memory for long-term consolidation. And this is kind of what we know. You need to review the same material at least twice in one day, ideally four hours apart. So what I would kind of say is instead of reading, let's say you're studying for four hours and you're covering chapters one through four,

don't cover chapters one through four in a four-hour block. Instead, what you should do is cover chapters one to two, take a break for about four hours, and then cover chapters one to two again. And what this really does is fills up your, RAM or your short-term memory with this information. And then the process of consolidation will be optimized while you sleep. The second thing that we really have to think about is remember that the brain prioritizes de-learning over learning. And so this is where if you have any kind of negative

emotions before you go to sleep, your brain will process those emotions instead of focusing on the material. And I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but let's say I'm like studying for a test and then my significant other calls me and is like, hey, I think we should take a break. As I get emotionally disturbed, I'm not going to be thinking about my test overnight or the material. My brain is going to focus on putting out the fires of that emotional energy because now I'm pissed off. I'm scared. I'm frightened. I'm pissed. I feel betrayed, whatever. All those negative emotions take priority. So what we sort of know is that de-learning takes priority over learning.

So before you go to bed, any kind of journaling or anything like that you can do or talking things through or like meditating or whatever. Like, as long as there's negative emotions floating around in your mind, your mind will prioritize that over the memory consolidation and reviewing things in your sleep. The next thing to understand is actually kind of interesting because it is the opposite of what a lot of people will tell you to do. And that is, do not write anything down before you go to sleep. So if you're studying things, don't like make notes about them, especially for that second repetition. You can sort of do it for the first repetition, but we actually don't want to write things down. And let's understand why. So what happens to our RAM, what happens to our short-term memory

when we write things down? It actually gets emptied. So if we sort of think about using a calendar or using an organizer, the moment that we make a to-do list, what actually happens to our short-term memory or RAM? It gets freed up. So this is a technique that we use on purpose, right? What I want to do is put everything on a to-do list or stick everything on a calendar. And the reason that I want to do with that is to free up my mind so that I can focus on something else. But remember, if we want to study in our sleep, what we actually do is we don't want an empty mind. We want a completely full mind. We want our short-term memory to be maxed out. So paradoxically, if I write a bunch of stuff down before I go to bed, what I actually find is that it empties my mind out and my mind does not go

through this process. So you want to avoid writing things down that are related to whatever is in your RAM before you go to bed. Okay? A couple of other things that we need to consider. The first is that basically all kinds of substances will interfere with this process. So when I was learning this yoga Nidder practice, my teachers basically told me like you have to be like free of all substances, all psychoactive substances, caffeine, whatever. So I can actually get away with caffeine in the morning, but if I have any caffeine afternoon, it doesn't really work. And any kind of alcohol or marijuana will interfere with this process. Let's understand why. So the first is if we think about why do people use things like marijuana to help them sleep or CBD? It gives them this deep sense of

rest, right? So unless I use marijuana or alcohol or even sleeping medication, I'm going to be tossing and turning and my mind will be very active. So how do I induce a deep state of rest by zonking my mind out? And if I use certain psychoactive substances and I go to sleep, I disappear into the ether with no awareness for eight hours, nine hours, then I wake up, right? I wasn't tossing and turning. I wasn't thinking about anything. I was in a very deep state of rest. So if we sort of think about the hypnayogic state, so here's like consciousness over here, here's hypnoogic and here's like deep rest. All of those psychoactive substances will move you right past that hypno yogic state into this like deep, deep rest where you have no conscious control. And we also have really good scientific

data to back this up. So we know that, for example, like marijuana and any psychoactive substance, will actually interfere with your sleep stage architecture. So I don't know if you all are familiar with this, but there are these four stages of sleep and there's REM sleep and all this kind of crap. And what we sort of know is that it doesn't matter which substance, something is going to mess with that sleep stage architecture to leave things in a non-ideal state.

Okay? The last thing to consider is that deadlines are really, really important for cognitive productivity during sleep. And I wish this weren't the case, but in my experience, when I review stuff in my head, there has to be like a deadline coming up. Like I can't read something a week ahead of time. And then for some reason, this process just triggers less.

I've sort of found that the closer that I am to an actual deadline, my subconscious mind kind of knows like, oh, crap, like we really need to review this stuff. And it sort of like helps me review it the night before I sleep. So what I've sort of found is that the, you know, the 24 to 72 hours before I have a test is what triggers this process the most. It's just kind of the truth of the matter. I wish it weren't the case. Maybe as I become more proficient in Yoga Nidra, that'll change.

But that's just kind of how it is. So just to summarize, if you want to be cognitively productive while you sleep, there's actually a way to do this. It starts with the foundational practice of Yoga Nidra. And Yoga Nidra will train your awareness to be somewhat active in these kind of like trance-like states. And there's even like interesting EEG or electrical activity kind of studies on the brains of people who enter the state where it's not quite consciousness and it's not quite sleep.

So you have to train yourself. It'll take anywhere between a week and three months. The longer you do it, the better you'll get at it. Second thing we've got to do is optimize our RAM. So we want to fill it up by studying the same thing at least four hours apart twice a day. We don't want to sabotage our RAM by like other highly engaging crappy stuff like, you know, stuff that pisses you off on Twitter or like engaging on Reddit or whatever. And then the other thing to remember is that our brain will prioritize de-learning over learning. So if there are emotions that are active, what we actually want to do is try to vent those emotions as much as possible before we go to sleep. So you can do something like journal before you go to bed, right? So you can empty all that stuff out or you can meditate, you can go for a walk, you can talk with a friend, whatever. You kind of want to get rid of all that stuff.

The other thing that we also want to keep in mind is where a lot of people screw up is that we want to do journaling for emotions, but we actually don't want to write anything down right before we go to bed for the stuff that you're trying to learn. because remember that when you write something down, it actually leaves your mind. So we actually want that randomly filled up, so don't write anything down before you go to bed. The last couple of things to consider is watch out for your caffeine intake, marijuana intake, alcohol intake, all of your psychoactive substances. And the last thing is that the closer you are to the deadline, the more likely this will happen. This is something that I've been able to do quite consistently. I think it's pretty responsible for my success.

I've been able to help some people do this, but this is really like more of a long-haul technique. And there aren't scientific studies on this whole thing. So what we've been able to do is kind of tie together and extrapolate from basic science research, understanding of like psychiatry and trauma and stuff like that, along with some of these yogic techniques. So I strongly encourage y'all to try this stuff and let us know how it works for you. It may take a couple weeks. It may take a couple months, but by all means, report back. The last thing is that I know we talked about yoga nithra.

That's a practice that takes about half an hour to learn. I think we've got a YouTube video about it so you can definitely check it out there. But we also have Dr. Kay's Guide to Meditation where we sort of have a more complete explanation of yoga nidra, as well as all that rewriting personality crap that I talked about at the beginning of the video. So if you all are interested in kind of learning it more that way and like learning it in a deeper way, definitely check out the guide. So good luck and let me know how it works for you.