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Why You Should Start Later Essay

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Ever wonder why you can’t remember things you should or why you are having trouble concentrating? You probably did not get enough sleep. Having more than six hours of sleep is known to help you think clearly and aid in learning and memory consolidation. In some cases, it is impossible to get enough sleep with the 24/7 society we live in. As a result, researchers have shown that by merely believing you have slept more, you are likely to increase your performance on mental tasks. In the study, 50 participants were asked to comment on how well they had slept the night before. The participants were told that most adults spend 20-25% of their sleep in rapid eye movement (REM) – deep sleep associated with dreaming. They were also told that those who spend more than 25% in REM sleep perform better on learning and memory tests compared to those who spend less than 20% of their sleep in REM. The participants were then hooked up to a machine to measure heart rate, pulse, and brain wave frequency to indicate the percentage of REM sleep they had the night before. But in actuality, the researchers only measured their brain wave frequency. They then randomly assigned participants to one of two groups: the “above average” sleep group or the “below …show more content…

By giving the participants only one test, we don't know if we can generalize the results to other types of questions testing mental performance. Also, because the participants knew that those with higher REM sleep perform better than those with lower REM sleep, they could've acted in a way to meet this criterion. Another limitation was that the experimenter was aware of what assigned group the participants were in. This awareness could lead the experimenter into only recording data that agreed with their hypothesis. In an attempt to address these concerns, the researchers conducted another

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