REVEALED! Einstein's Secret Brain Genius, Sleeping 10 Hours and Not Wearing Socks

REVEALED! Einstein's Secret Brain Genius, Sleeping 10 Hours and Not Wearing Socks

SLEEPING more than 10 hours and not wearing socks, could this be the secret to being a genius?

It is common knowledge for all of us that sleep is good for our brain and Einstein took this advice more seriously than most people.

He reportedly sleeps at least 10 hours per day, nearly 1.5 times more than the average American now sleeps (6.8 hours). But can we use this habit as a way to become smarter?

The author of the book John Steinbeck once said, "It is common experience that problems that are difficult at night can be resolved in the morning after sleep."

Many of the most radical breakthroughs in human history, including the periodic table, the structure of DNA and Einstein's theory of special relativity, supposedly occurred while their discoverers were unconscious.

The latter theory emerged when Einstein was dreaming about cows being electrocuted. However, is this really true?

In 2004, scientists at the University of Lubeck, Germany tested the idea with a simple experiment. First they train volunteers to play a numbers game.

Most of them slowly understand it with practice, but by far the fastest way to improve it is to uncover the hidden rules.

When the students were tested again eight hours later, those who were allowed to sleep were twice as likely to understand the rules as those who stayed awake.

When we fall asleep, the brain enters a series of cycles.

Every 90-120 minutes, the brain fluctuates between light sleep, deep sleep, and a dream-related phase known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM), which until recently was thought to play a major role in learning and memory.

However, this is not the whole story. "Non-REM sleep is still a bit of a mystery, but we spend about 60% of our nights in this type of sleep," said Stuart Fogel, a neuroscientist at the University of Ottawa.

Non-REM sleep is characterized by rapid bursts of brain activity, referred to as 'spindle events' because of the spindle-like shape that represents the waves on the EEG.

Deep sleep usually involves thousands of these events lasting no more than a few seconds each. "It's a gateway to other stages of sleep — the more you sleep, the more events you experience," she says.

Spindle events begin with a surge of electrical energy generated by a rapid eruption in the brain. The main culprit is the thalamus, an oval-shaped area that acts as the brain's 'master diversion' center, sending sensory signals in the right direction.

When we sleep, it acts like an internal earplug, scrambling external information to help you stay asleep. During spindle events, these waves travel to the surface of the brain and then come back down again to complete a cycle.

Interestingly, those with more spindle events tended to have greater 'fluent intelligence' - the ability to solve new problems, use logic in new situations, and identify patterns - which are things that Einstein had.

"Those things don't seem to be related to other types of intelligence, like the ability to memorize facts and numbers, so it's very specific to reasoning skills," Fogel said. This connection fits with Einstein's disdain for formal education and his advice to "never memorize anything you can look up."

Although the more you sleep, the more spindle events you will get, this is by no means evidence that sleeping more is beneficial.

Are some people having spindle events because they are smart or are they smart because they have more spindle events? There's still no answer, but a recent study suggests sleeping at night in women and napping in men can improve thinking and problem-solving skills.

Crucially, the intelligence driver was related to the presence of spindle events that occurred only during sleep at night in women and during the day in men.

It's not yet known why spindle events might help, but Fogel thinks it may have something to do with the active region.

"We found that the same regions that produce waves, namely the thalamus and cortex (part of the brain's surface), promote the ability to solve problems and use logic in new situations," he said.

Fortunately for Einstein, he also took regular naps. It is said that according to a story, to make sure Einstein didn't take long naps, he leaned back in his armchair with a spoon in hand and a metal plate directly beneath him.

He let himself fall asleep for a second, then - teng! The spoon slipped from his hand and fell onto the plate, the sound of which woke him up.

Not wearing socks

Einstein's list of uniqueness is incomplete without mentioning his reluctance to wear socks.

"When I was young," he wrote in a letter to his cousin-turned-wife, Elsa, "I learned that my big toe always poked holes in socks. So I stopped wearing socks."

One day, when she couldn't find her sandals, she wore Elsa's sling backs.

Turns out, Einstein's hipster look probably didn't help him that much. Unfortunately, no studies have looked directly at the impact of not wearing socks, but changing from formal to casual attire is associated with poor performance on tests of abstract thinking.

And a better way to end this article is a suggestion from Einstein himself. "The important thing is not to stop asking questions, curiosity has its reasons for staying," he told LIFE magazine in 1955.

Maybe you can also try toe exercises. Who knows it works and aren't you curious to know the results?

Reference:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/lifestyle.okezone.com