subject: Sleep Learning: Can You Really Learn Stuff While You Sleep? [print this page] Sleep Learning: Can You Really Learn Stuff While You Sleep?
Sleep learning sounds to be good to be true. You put a CD on loop and leave it playing whilst you're asleep. Aside from any objections you might encounter from your partner, what's involved in sleep learning and is it really possible to learn stuff whilst you sleep?
Scientific studies on sleep learning are hard to come by because it's difficult to say that you learned something specifically whilst you were asleep and also because it's difficult to run control experiments. The audio on sleep learning CDs is quite audible, so running a double blind trial (which you could arguably do with subliminal products) presents difficulties.
But there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to show that sleep learning certainly helps out with things that you want to learn. Ideally in conjunction with other methods so that what you learned during the day is reinforced whilst you snooze away.
There have also been some studies that show it's possible to reinforce our memories whilst we sleep, so the odds are in favor of sleep learning being a productive thing to do.
There have been plenty of studies that show that we need a good night's sleep, so when you choose a sleep learning program you need to make sure that it's been designed to go hand in hand with your regular sleeping routine.
Ideally, listen to the CDs during your regular day's schedule. You don't want anything that would jar or wake you up. If need be, use an audio editing program like Audacity to cut out any preamble so that you're only going to be listening to the actual learning part of the CD rather than anything that says "you're getting ready to learn", etc.
Assuming you're convinced enough to at least give sleep learning a try, the next thing to do is work out what you actually learn.
A lot of people who do use sleep learning use it to change their actual day to day habits. All the things that you want to change but don't ever get round to doing anything about.
For instance, it's been successful in helping people to stick better to their diets. Hmm! That sounds a bit too much like an advert - "lose weight while you sleep!".
It's also been shown to be useful to change other attitudes so that you gain a more positive mental attitude or a boost in confidence.
All in all, sleep learning has a lot going for it and - because of the doubters - most sleep learning programs come with some form of money back guarantee to help convince you.
