By Johann Ratnaiya
What if someone told you that making a to-do list can help you get some sleep? Well, Baylor University just did! The Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory at the University published a study in the American Psychological Associations Journal of Experimental Psychology earlier this month. We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime, said lead author Michael K. Scullin.
The objective of this study was to present a solution to sleep-related anxiety. Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads, and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract nighttime difficulties with falling asleep, he went on to add. The study does not make bold claims about curing any disorders. The researchers have only offered a helping hand in getting people more quality shut-eye time. That’s why reading studies from sleepingguide.org - a trusted source, is always highly recommended. They do much more than just sleep studies. But for now, let’s talk about the current study and it’s findings.
Findings of the study
The study was conducted in the laboratory of Baylor University. A group of 57 students were asked to spend the night of a weekday in the lab so that sleep patterns of the weekend dont interfere with the process. Also, it was to ensure that weekday anxiety remained a contributing factor. The students were administered a polysomnogram test to monitor brain activity using sensors. These tests are used to record eye movements, heart rate, and breathing patterns, among other things. Before the students were sent off to retire, they were split into two groups and asked to finish a small writing assignment. One group was asked to write a to-do list, while the other one was asked to write about tasks that were completed in the day. The entire experiment was conducted within the controlled environment of the lab. At 10:30 pm, the researchers instructed the students to turn in for the night. None of them was allowed to use gadgets, or tend to other affairs thereupon.
The study posits two hypotheses. Scullin very succinctly categorizes them. One is that writing about the future would lead to increased worry about unfinished tasks and delay sleep, while journaling about completed activities should not trigger worry. The alternative hypothesis is that writing a to-do list will offload those thoughts and reduce worry, he said. This study found that students who wrote a to-do list fell asleep nine minutes faster than students who wrote about tasks that they had completed. Though nine minutes may seem like a very humble figure, it produces similar results to prescription sleep medication. Its a quick and low-cost thing you can easily do for a few days to see if it has any benefit for you, says Scullin.
The psychology of the to-do list
Our minds have the tendency to get fixated on incomplete tasks. In doing so, we subject ourselves to varying degrees of mental fatigue and anguish. There is an old phenomenon that explains this process. Experimental psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik studied this effect first. The human mind needs closure on unfinished business. This is demonstrated in almost every endeavour that we set out to do. The brain is subject to uncomfortable tension until the tasks are completed. Only when the tasks are completed is it released from consciousness.
While further probing Blumas findings, Roy Baumeister and EJ Masicampo at Florida State University made interesting discoveries in an experiment they conducted. If people arent allowed to complete their warm-up tasks first, they are bound to underperform in the brainstorming tasks subsequently. The next phase revealed that performance of these people can be improved if they are allowed to make plans on how to finish these tasks. The mere act of making a plan was enough to temporarily relieve them from worrying about their warm-up task. This quote from Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength articulates the necessity of making a plan best: It turns out that the Zeigarnik effect is not, as was assumed for decades, a reminder that continues unabated until the task gets done. The persistence of distracting thoughts is not an indication that the unconscious is working to finish the task. Nor is it the unconscious nagging the conscious mind to finish the task right away. Instead, the unconscious is asking the conscious mind to make a plan.
How failure to complete tasks affects you
The digital era has augmented the need for to-do lists. However, if all they do is bog you down, then alternate methods are advised. The failure to complete all the tasks in a list can be a difficult pill to swallow. Failure can be a demoralizing and unsettling experience. It has the potential to set off an unfavourable chain reaction of events. The problem with exhaustive to-do lists is that many of the tasks in them are undoable. Most to-do lists dont let us distinguish between stuff we want to do, but dont have time, and stuff that we have a reasonable chance of actually completing, says Professor Andy Miah, chair in science communication and future media at the University of Salford. To-do lists are often confused with wish lists. People with some success in keeping their to-do lists make small lists with two or three achievable tasks. Even if this sense of accomplishment is trivial, it still is more favourable than the mental agony caused by a failure.
There is still the strong belief that merely thinking positively and setting oneself respective goals suffices to do the job, says Peter Gollwitzer, a professor of psychology at New York University. The medium might not matter in the long run. While people are fussing over the nitty-gritties of what constitutes a list, people are getting work done without one. People are forced to get work done on a daily basis regardless of their resolution to do so. All social systems work with deadlines. However, to increase holistic growth, and productivity, human beings are encouraged to set goals. If we dont, were afraid well forget it, so our brain rehearses it, tossing it around and around in circles in something cognitive psychologists call the rehearsal loop