In short: Sleeping after learning helps you remember, athletes perform better and get injured less often with enough sleep, and big decisions are better not made after a short night.
Don’t make big decisions after a short night
Tip: Postpone important decisions if you have slept badly.
With sleep loss you do not notice how badly you perform: two weeks of 6 hours’ sleep caused as much loss of concentration as two nights without any sleep. Junior doctors on long shifts made about 36% more serious errors.
How to apply it: Postpone contracts, big purchases and sensitive conversations until you are rested.
Source: Van Dongen et al., 2003, Sleep. Landrigan et al., 2004, New England Journal of Medicine.
Tired at the wheel is life-threatening
Tip: Do not drive when you are very tired and stop at the first signs.
Drivers with 4–5 hours of sleep were more than 4 times as likely to crash as drivers with 7+ hours. After 17–19 hours awake you perform roughly as at 0.05% blood alcohol.
How to apply it: Stop when you yawn, have heavy eyes or drift off. Take a 15–20 minute nap and take a break every 2 hours.
Source: Tefft, 2016, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Williamson & Feyer, 2000, Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Losing weight starts with sleeping
Tip: Want to lose weight? Put 7–8 hours of sleep in your plan.
In a small diet study (10 adults), with 5.5 hours of sleep about 55% less of the weight lost came from fat and about 60% more muscle mass was lost than with 8.5 hours. In another study, about 1.2 hours of extra sleep in short sleepers with overweight reduced calorie intake by about 270 kcal a day.
How to apply it: Start by going to bed 30 minutes earlier and keep an eye on your hunger and cravings.
Source: Nedeltcheva et al., 2010, Annals of Internal Medicine. Tasali et al., 2022, JAMA Internal Medicine.
Studying? Sleep helps you remember
Tip: After studying, go to sleep on time instead of studying on.
People who went to sleep after learning vocabulary remembered it better than those who stayed awake. A 60–90 minute nap restored learning ability as well as a night.
How to apply it: Briefly review in the evening what you have learned and take a nap after studying.
Source: Gais et al., 2006, Learning & Memory. Mednick et al., 2003, Nature Neuroscience. Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924, American Journal of Psychology.
Sleep on it
Tip: Stuck on a problem? Go to sleep and come back to it tomorrow.
After a night of sleep, about 59% of participants found the hidden rule in a puzzle, against about 23% of those who stayed awake. In another study, a nap with REM sleep improved creative solving of word puzzles more than rest or a nap without REM sleep.
How to apply it: Write the problem down before bed, do nothing more and look at it again in the morning.
Source: Wagner et al., 2004, Nature. Cai et al., 2009, PNAS.
Sleep loss costs companies billions
Tip: Employers: take sleep seriously in your policy, for example in rosters and workload.
A RAND study estimated the economic costs of sleep loss in the US at hundreds of billions of dollars a year, through reduced productivity and absenteeism.
How to apply it: Avoid email after working hours, plan rosters with enough rest and encourage naps or flexible start times.
Source: Hafner et al., 2016, RAND Corporation.
A tired team acts with less integrity
Tip: Leaders: pay attention to your team’s sleep, especially for important decisions.
Lack of sleep went together with less ethical behaviour at work. Being tired lowers self-control.
How to apply it: Do not schedule important meetings at the end of a long day and emphasise rest after peak periods.
Source: Barnes et al., 2011, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
More sleep is not always better
Tip: Regularly sleeping 10 hours or more and still tired? Get it checked.
Sleeping more than 9 hours over a long period was linked to a higher risk of death, probably due to underlying health problems. So it is a signal, not a goal.
How to apply it: Discuss it with your GP if you sleep a lot and are still exhausted.
Source: Cappuccio et al., 2010, Sleep (association, not a cause).
Sleep = an appointment with yourself
Tip: Put your bedtime in your calendar, just like a meeting.
Bedtime procrastination is common behaviour that does not come from ignorance but from a lack of self-regulation at the end of the day. Concrete planning helps.
How to apply it: Set a daily reminder 45 minutes before bedtime and finish your evening before it.
Source: Kroese et al., 2014, Frontiers in Psychology.
Start small: 15 minutes earlier
Tip: This week, go to bed 15 minutes earlier every day and build up gradually.
Improvements in sleep do not have to be big to have an effect: in research on short sleepers, even just over an hour of extra sleep had measurable effects on appetite and energy balance. Small, achievable steps are easier to keep up.
How to apply it: Pick one tip from this series, do it for two weeks and then add the next one.
Source: Tasali et al., 2022, JAMA Internal Medicine.
Did you know?
Learning? Sleep afterwards
A classic study showed that people remembered far more of learned words after sleep than after a day awake.
Tip: If you study in the evening, go to sleep on time instead of studying on.
Source: Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924, American Journal of Psychology.
REM sleep = more creative
A nap with REM sleep improved creative solving of word puzzles more than rest or a nap without REM sleep.
Tip: A creative task? Take a nap or have a good night first.
Source: Cai et al., 2009, PNAS.
Your brain keeps practising at night
After a night of sleep, people improved on a motor task by about 20%, without extra training.
Tip: Learning a new movement, instrument or dance? Practise in the evening and sleep afterwards.
Source: Walker et al., 2002, Neuron.
Pulling an all-nighter before a test backfires
Pupils who sacrificed sleep to study understood the material worse the next day.
Tip: Study by day, sleep at night.
Source: Gillen-O'Neel et al., 2013, Child Development.
Sleep helps you learn vocabulary
People who went to sleep after learning vocabulary remembered it better than those who stayed awake.
Tip: Do your language apps in the evening and sleep afterwards.
Source: Gais et al., 2006, Learning & Memory.
Irregular sleep = worse grades
Students with an irregular sleep rhythm had lower study results, even with the same sleep duration.
Tip: Keep your wake-up time fixed, even if you went to bed later.
Source: Phillips et al., 2017, Scientific Reports.
And your mattress?
Recovery after sport starts with a position in which your body relaxes. Stomach sleeper? Read stomach sleeping: pros and cons and view SleepLab One.
Frequently asked questions
Does sleep help with learning?
Yes. Sleep after learning helps your brain store new information. That is why pulling an all-nighter before a test backfires.
How much sleep do athletes need?
In research on athletes, less than 8 hours of sleep went together with more injuries, and extra sleep with better performance.
More sleep tips
- Falling asleep faster
- The ideal bedroom
- Power nap and daytime tips
- Food, drink and sleep
- Worrying and insomnia
- Sleep rhythm and regularity
- Sleep and your body
- Sleep in the family
- Effects of sleep deprivation
- All sleep tips
General information, not medical advice. If you have persistent sleep problems, snore with breathing pauses or are very sleepy during the day, see your GP. SleepLab One is not a medical device. Updated on 22 October 2026.