#ThinkfullyHabit: Go to bed
If we asked 100 people, how many do you think mull things over or sleep on things as part of how they routinely work? What’s your best guess?
Sleeping on a problem can be a very effective strategy to finding a new way forward. Take the golfing legend Jack Nicklaus who is widely regarded as one of the greatest golf players of all time. However, part way through his career he had a period of time where his performance slumped. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle he recounts how a dream about his golf swing led him to turn his performance around. He realised that in his dream he was gripping the club differently to his usual style. He recaps, "I tried it the way I did in my dream and it worked. I feel kind of foolish admitting it, but it really happened in a dream."
“We dream because it is a thinking process.”
WHY?
Our brains are never off duty. Even when we step away from an issue or sleep on things, our brain will often still work away on a problem in the background. The neuroscientist Russell Foster reminds us just how effective sleeping on an issue can be - it’s been estimated that a night’s sleep can give us a three-fold advantage when trying to solve complex problems. The reason? When we are not trying so hard to work a problem out, we loosen up our thinking, get a bit more creative and ideas can come together to consolidate in new ways. Sleep helps us integrate information and insights. Research shows that problem solving improves after a night’s sleep without any additional conscious effort given over to solving the problem.
So, how many people out of every 100 take time to mull things over or sleep on things? The answer is 47. We know this because we recently asked this question of a representative sample of 1000 UK workers. If you already take time to sleep on things then congratulations, the thinking science reinforces that you are helping your brain to solve problems.
If you don’t yet use this tactic, you are not alone. In fact, a fifth of people rarely or never make the space to mull something over or sleep on it. If you do not routinely make use of this tactic then maybe it’s time to reassess. The simple act of taking space to mull or sleep on it can be highly effective. If you’re lucky, you may even dream about it too, which can give you precious insight into the problem.
Next time you’re grappling with a problem, whenever there’s the opportunity, leave it till the morning to come back to the issue. Just like Jack Nicklaus, you’ll be surprised at how soon you can get into the swing of it.