Every 15 minutes matter to your IQ. Here’s why

In the hustle bustle of our daily lives, we ignore the importance of a having a full eight hours sleep. We stay up late, wake up early feeling drowsy and load ourselves with gallons of caffeine. We often praise ourselves for surviving the day with bare minimum sleep, hardly three hours at maximum. But little do we know it has far more severe consequences on our brain. An hour less sleep makes the brain of a sixth grader that of a fourth grader. PO Bronson and Ashley Merryman in their new book ‘NurtureShock’ explains that the performance gap caused by an hour’s difference of sleep is more than the normal gap between a fourth grader and sixth grader.

Researcher Wahlstrom’s data suggests that on an average an ‘A’ grader got 15 minutes more sleep than a B grader who in turn got 15 minutes more sleep than a C grader. Yes, every 15 minutes count.

Other than intelligence we also lose our impulse. When we are tired, we tend to recall negative memories more than our positive memories. In a study done by researcher Walker on sleep deprived college students showed that those with less hours of sleep could recall 80% of negative words from a memory words list and a mere 31% of positive words.

Think twice before you call yourselves a workaholic who can go days without having any sleep. It is having the opposite effect on you. The important part is the effects are gradually visible. Go home, get under your blankets and have a good night’s sleep today to restore your two years of lots intelligence.

(Image credits: indiatimes)