Learning a New Language Could Depend on How Many Zzs You Get

Sleep is one of the most fundamental building blocks of life. All animals sleep, from cassowaries to humans. It has long been known that sleep also plays a significant role in physical and emotional health. Now, researchers from the University of South Australia have published a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience that investigates the way sleep helps people learn language. This is good news for anyone who wants to study a foreign language.

REM and non-REM sleep
According to a blog on Everywhere English, there are two phases that the brain cycles through when sleeping. The first is called REM sleep. During this phase, which usually happens about an hour and a half after a person has fallen asleep, brain activity spikes and shows levels that are similar to when that person is awake. This is when dreams occur. In non-REM sleep, brain activity is low.

One might think that memory and learning are acquired when the brain is very active, but in fact, the researchers from the University of South Australia found that just the reverse is true.

Learning Mini Pinyin
According to a University of South Australia press release, the researchers conducted an experiment with 35 native English speakers. These 35 participants were in the process of learning a mini-language called Mini Pinyan, which is based on Mandarin but uses English syntax and grammatical rules. 

Half of the students learned the language in the morning and then went on with their days, while the other half studied in the evening and then slept at the lab so that the researchers could record their brainwaves. Both groups were tested on their knowledge of Mini Pinyan in the morning. The group that had slept soon after they studied performed significantly better than those who had not. 

Beyond proving that sleep helps you  learn a new language, more importantly, the study reveals why this is the case. The improvements were linked to two types of brain waves – slow oscillations and sleep spindles – that become coupled during non-REM sleep. The coupling of these brainwaves appears to help the transfer of information from the hippocampus to the cortex, which is where long-term memory is stored. 

“Sleep is not just restful; it’s an active, transformative state for the brain,” Dr. Scott Cousins, a researcher at the University of South Australia, said in the press release. 

The implications of this study are not only important for those trying to learn a new language. It could also help improve the lives of those with language-related impairments, such as aphasia or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Now there is one more reason to get a good night’s sleep.