3 Ways That Sleep Can Help You Improve Your GRE Score

By Tamiera Vandegrift on September 26, 2017

College students often underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep. After all, the campus libraries must be open 24 hours a day for a reason, right? The practice of sleep deprivation among college students becomes most popular around exam season, especially when preparing for professional exams like the GRE. College students often throw the word “all-nighter” around like an ultimate Frisbee on the green, but that doesn’t make the practice any less harmful.

According to an article in the United States National Library of Medicine, sleep deprivation can result in “lower grade point averages, increased risk of academic failure, compromised learning, [and] impaired mood.”

And we haven’t even touched on the ways sleep deprivation affects your physical health!

All in all, sleep deprivation is an awful practice, especially when it comes to preparing for huge exams, like the GRE. Don’t believe us? Keep reading to learn more about how maintaining a healthy sleep schedule will help you score well on the GRE.

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Sleep helps you retain information

It might seem like the best way to record information into your mind is cramming it over the course of several sleep-deprived days, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Someone suffering from sleep deprivation cannot learn new information effectively because lack of sleep equals a lack of focus and a lack of mental energy. Without sleep, you will be too much of a catatonic zombie to take in new material.

Getting a good night’s sleep helps you to restore and retain the information and data that your brain collected over the course of the day. Sleeping helps the brain solidify information so that it remains permanent for easier recollection. Think of pulling all-nighters as using semi-sticky tape to stick a poster to the wall versus using a drill to permanently fix it to the wall. Cramming at 3 a.m. might be the craze, but it won’t help you be successful on the GRE.

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Sleep helps you rest your brain

When you are getting some exercise at the gym, you have probably broken up your workouts into segments (i.e. Upper body Monday, Cardio Tuesday, Lower body Wednesday, etc.). This ensures that every muscle gets attention while other muscles are able to rest. Working out muscles to excess without rest harbors negative results.

The same can be said about your brain. Constantly overworking your brain day and night, forcing it to hang on to intense amounts of data will exhaust you and kill you on the day of your test. You might envision walking into the testing facility with your fist in the air like a champion from a corny ’80s school comedy, but instead, you’ll be shuffling in like a character from The Walking Dead.

When your brain is fried from a lack of sleep, you won’t be your best self. You will make careless errors without thinking about it. Your brain will be slower and more painful to work with than it would on a night of proper sleep. To be successful with the GRE, you need your brain to be at 150 percent, but the only way to ensure that is to make sure you get the right amount of sleep.

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Sleep boosts creativity and thinking ability

Just like Popeye needs spinach to buff up his muscles, you need sleep to buff up your brain in time for exams. Studies have shown that getting enough sleep helps people to enhance their problem-solving skills and creativity.

Ever heard the phrase, “Sleep on it”? According to Harvard Health Publishing, researchers in California gave a group of study participants a set of creative problems one morning and requested that they have them solved by the afternoon. Half were told to stay awake during the study, while the others were told to nap long enough to enter REM sleep (or Rapid Eye Movement).

The study proved that those who napped long enough to enter REM sleep were 40 percent more successful on the creative test than those who didn’t. Why? Because their brains had time to deliberate on an issue while the body was asleep. Getting a good night’s rest can also help you clear out the “junk mail” of your brain, so to speak.

According to The Huffington Post, neurological science has revealed that during sleep, your brain erases toxins that have accumulated over a period of time. By getting a good night’s sleep, you will be erasing the junk from your hard drive and making more space for the important things, like necessary information for your upcoming GRE exam.

Overall, the value of sleep is immeasurable. It is a time for the brain to relax, recharge, and refocus. There are many ways to encourage a healthy sleeping schedule, like avoiding alcohol and caffeine before bed, avoiding screens and bright lights, going to sleep around the same time every day, and taking naps when possible. Self-care is the first step to success. Preparing for the GRE is no different.

Good luck!

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