Recent scientific studies have provided some evidence that there is a bit of merit to my whole strategy, however. The Wired article on the subject is over here.
Turns out that sleepiness sorta trains the mind to work in new ways, not unlike a trauma victim, to sort things out...
The results are a testament to the creative virtues of grogginess. When people were tested during their “least optimal time of day” — think of that night owl stumbling into the lab in the early morning — they were significantly more effective at solving insight puzzles. (On one problem, their performance increased by nearly 50 percent.) Performance on the analytic problems, meanwhile, was unaffected by the clock.
Even better news, for me, it turns out that people are more likely to find that Ah-ha! solution to a problem at "peak" beer buzz (or general alcohol buzz)...
One last piece of evidence: A brand-new study by scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago compared performance on insight puzzles between sober and drunk students. (They were aiming for real intoxication, giving students enough booze to achieve a blood alcohol level of 0.075.) Once the students achieved “peak intoxication” the scientists gave them a battery of word problems – they’re known as remote associate tests – that are often solved in a moment of insight. Here’s a sample problem. Your task is to find the one additional word that goes with the following triad of words:Cracker Union RabbitIn this case, the answer is “jack.” According to the data, drunk students solved more of these word problems in less time. They also were much more likely to perceive their solutions as the result of a sudden insight. And the differences were dramatic: The alcohol made subjects nearly 30 percent more likely to find the unexpected solution.
So, I will just take all of that information as a positive, I think.
I didn't really sleep much last night and all of my usual conditions apply...
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