Sleep’s effect on studies

I love these sorta studies that prove my allergy to cramming, and the confusion it inherently causes in my simple brain box. I have always believed that the last minute absorption of large amounts of detail has the only effect of limiting recall of everything,

EXCEPT THE LAST THING YOU READ!.

And What do you know... I was right!
Must go buy a lotto ticket!

Studying sleep’s effect on studies: Better to rest than cram for tests, psychology professor says

Overnight cramming sessions might hurt students’ exam grades rather than help them, and naps before games might help athletes improve their performance.Those were the findings this semester of a Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts sophomore, Danielle Durand, whose study of 10 students, under the supervision of psychology professor Peggy Brooks, Ph.D, indicates people retain factual information better when they’ve had a good night’s sleep.

“Research shows that the benefits of sleep have to do with memory,” said Brooks, who also supervised two previous long-term studies that looked at the sleep habits of 257 MCLA students. “Sleep is very important for motor-skill performance and declarative memory of words, names and facts — the first kind of memory you lose when you lose sleep.”

... In the two earlier studies, [...] examined student sleep patterns and their effects on academics, athletics and mental health.

Participants were evaluated using standardized sleep pattern questionnaires, a depression inventory, and a 14-day sleep diary modified from one provided by the National Sleep Foundation.

... Mirroring the national average

MCLA students in the studies averaged 7.44 hours of sleep each night, almost mirroring the national average of 7.42 hours.

But the times the students went to bed [...] might be increasing the need for naps to make up for late nights and changing sleep patterns, Brooks said.

“Bedtimes have gotten later over the decades,” she said. “The average bedtime reported (in our study) was 1:15 a.m. on weeknights and 2:15 a.m. on weekends. “The effect of being more of a 24-hour society, and the advent of the Internet and other technology that keeps us stimulated longer, all contributes to students staying up later and getting less sleep.”

The sleep diaries also revealed that women taking part in the study, who reported sleeping an average of 30 minutes longer than men, showed fewer symptoms of depression than the men. Depression is twice as likely to be reported in women than in men, according to the American Psychological Association.

“The finding suggests that for women, sleep may make the difference for other symptoms of depression,” Brooks said. “But our sample was not a clinical sample; we were looking at symptoms of depression in a general student sample. With our students, less sleep was associated with depression.”

Girgenti, a senior at MCLA, and Mills, a 2006 graduate, [...] discovered a relationship between grade-point averages provided by students and the times they reported waking up in the morning.

“National samples show that ‘early to bed, early to rise’ makes students wiser,” Brooks explained. “In our sample, we found that students who had better overall sleep quality had higher grade-point averages.”

Parasite makes men dumb, women sexy

Does this mean that we got two excuses? From the Sydney Morning Herald

1. Its genetic, so I cant' be blamed.. or now...
2. It's a parasite, so I cant be blamed.

Unfortunately this will be an excuse for people to deny the real root cause of mant of these problems..

3. I'm dumb... careless and thoughtless, or hungover, or drunk.

A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says. [...] About 40 per cent of the world's population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, [and ...] infection generally occurs when people eat raw or undercooked meat that has cysts containing the parasite, or accidentally ingest some of the parasite's eggs excreted by an infected cat.

[Previously thought to be harmless], but new research has revealed its mind-altering properties.

"Interestingly, the effect of infection is different between men and women," Dr Boulter writes in the latest issue of Australasian Science magazine."Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women.

"On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.

"In short, it can make men behave like alley cats and women behave like sex kittens".

[...]

Another study showed people who were infected but not showing symptoms were 2.7 times more likely than uninfected people to be involved in a car accident as a driver or pedestrian, while other research has linked the parasite to higher incidences of schizophrenia.

"The increasing body of evidence connecting Toxoplasma infection with changes in personality and mental state, combined with the extremely high incidence of human infection in both developing and developed countries, warrants increased government funding and research, in particular to find safe and effective treatments or vaccines," Dr Boulter said.