I was wondering if you need sleep in order for you to get good scores or just to remember information more easily? When I went to England, I got no sleep before the WMC but I still did good in all of the events. I know they say how sleep is good for the memory but is it need for good scores?
I would like to do an experiment where I would go without sleep for 24 hours and measure my scores throughout. I would like to have a partner in this. Is there any takers? haha
For every single thing I can do I’m much worse if sleep is lacking. I can see the effect even if I slept like 7 hours instead of 8 or more. Some rare lucky people can perform perfectly well by only sleeping 4 hours a day, every day, without any problem at all, but unfortunately I’m not one of them: The people who need very little sleep
Yes because if you’ve had more sleep you won’t feel as tired & that will allow you to perform at your best being tired will always slow you down
being well rested is critical especially when you are competing in the world memory championship
when everything is on the line you can’t be at a disadvantage just think how awesome it would be to win or at come in at a good position haha
I wonder if the question could be reframed in terms of short term and long term memory. That is, does lack of sleep affect shorter term recollection to the same extent that it affects longer term recall?
It seems to me memory competitions would be better at testing our shorter term memory than our effectiveness at consolidating memory over days, weeks and months.
It is an interesting question, in my view because, even though I have read that studies have demonstrated that sleep deprivation negatively affects long term memory, I am not actually certain whether the same conclusions apply to short term recall.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/22/9487.full
Here you go 
this is what I could find on it in a brief google search
Mayarra,
Nice.
The study focuses on visual short term memory and seeks to distinguish whether any reduction in performance would be principally due to degradation of attention or of storage.
The article bears more careful reading, but as I understood things, it does help answer the main question–performance of short term memory is in fact degraded with sleep loss–but it goes even further to show that this is more due to visual attention being degraded than due to a storage issue. There was also a comment or two that seemed to hint at how one might try to reduce the impact of sleep loss on attention.
The notion that degradation of attention is a main source for a drop in performance for visual short term recall tasks under the influence of sleep deprivation makes a lot of intuitive sense to me based on my personal interpretation of my own experiences. That said, I would have to suppose that degradation of attention is actually a variable that could swing wildly from one individual to another, or based on other factors such as diet, health, age, etc.
Thanks for finding that study.
Darn
I do it constantly Johnny. You didn’t know that? I did not sleep last night for instance. I accumulate daily sleep debt and pay it off by sleeping two nights worth. I enjoy the energy and creativity that comes with a lack of sleep. I’ve been on a 48 hour schedule for a while now. Your body adjusts and it becomes the new normal. But if I sleep more than two nights in a row, my body’s sleep schedule goes back to 24 hours, and trying to stay up after that would make me tired as a dog.
However, I’d say there’s definitely a good shot that my memory would be better if I were on a 24 hour schedule. Your brain consolidates memories during slow wave sleep, and even though I get an excess of SWS during the long sleep after deprivation, I think sleeping more frequently would consolidate memories more effectively. Napping ought to help as well.
It seems to me memory competitions would be better at testing our shorter term memory than our effectiveness at consolidating memory over days, weeks and months.
This is inaccurate. Memory competitions test our long term memory. Short term memory, or “working memory” is what you handle in the moment, for approximately 30 seconds, like if someone tells you their phone number and you look around for a pen. Using mnemonics, we encode information straight into long term memory so that it can be recalled well after 30 seconds with no rehearsal between encoding and recall.
We review in most disciplines, but by “rehearsal” I am referring to images retained in the visuospatial sketchpad or rehearsed via phonological loop.
Are there any double blinds though? I bet changing 8-10 hours to 4-5 without people knowing it wouldn’t change much. Maybe it would even improve memory. It seems that typically it’s this emotional burnout (or burnin well) that causes people to feel psychological tiredness for no real reason, which then is incorrectly interpreted. It explains why meditation has energizing effect too.
Everyone is posting good information. It seems like a lot is pointing to that you need sleep…Well…Challenge accepted!!
I am going to go 24 hours without sleep and test myself throughout the day! I usually need to get some sort of sleep because of how I workout and train my body and mind.
I have a feeling this will be something haha
I am going to attempt this in the next couple of days. DO you all have any suggestions on what I should test myself on? I have ideas but I would love to hear what you have to say.
1 hour numbers, no coffee or other stimulants allowed.
LociInTheSky, do you eat? (just wanting to make sure if we have a potential Sherlock here)
Food for thought: Do abstract images turn into non-abstract while on LSD?