Understanding the importance of sleep just keeps growing more important. You haven't been paying attention if you've failed to noticed the parade of studies over the years that have revealed more and more about how critical sleep in its various phases is for emotional health, attention, cognition, memory and, in one sense or another, problem solving.
Even in college, I recognized that if I could prepare for exams early enough to get a full night's sleep before taking them, my memory and command of the exam material was notably better and easier the next morning. I didn't understand it, but it worked. In a similar way, I and others have shared throughout our school and professional lives that solutions to problems that eluded us the evening before were somehow so urgent and clear at 4-5 am in the morning. Not knowing how it occurred, there was no question that it did.
This article in Scientific American provides an informative, readable review of what we now know about the critical functions and considerable activity of the brain while we sleep. Particular attention is devoted to the increasing body of knowledge about the brain's organizing, storing and strengthening of memory, and it's organizing, analyzing and solving of problems--again, while we sleep.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-snoozing-makes-you-smarter&print=true
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