Why Don't You Sleep On It? 318
thefirelane wrote to mention a New Scientist study that indicates your subconscious mind is a better decision maker than you are. From the article: "The research suggests the conscious mind should be trusted only with simple decisions, such as selecting a brand of oven glove. Sleeping on a big decision, such as buying a car or house, is more likely to produce a result people remain happy with than consciously weighing up the pros and cons of the problem, the researchers say. Thinking hard about a complex decision that rests on multiple factors appears to bamboozle the conscious mind so that people only consider a subset of information, which they weight inappropriately, resulting in an unsatisfactory choice. In contrast, the unconscious mind appears able to ponder over all the information and produce a decision that most people remain satisfied with."
No big surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm quite fond of telling people that they think too much, or are overthinking a problem. They spend so much time fretting about how difficult the problem is that they don't actually devote any time to solving it.
Re:Brighter in the morning? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if it's necessarily working on problems, per-se. However, during REM sleep, your brain is at a very high level of metabolic and electrical activity, and is doing things like reinforcing long term memory. It's possible that this integration process makes for better decision making.
That said, without seeing the actual research paper, I'd have to say that the results of the study are rather specious. I'm not buying a research metric based on how people judge which "shampoo" is better.
And, when it comes to the subconcscious, I think I'd have to vote that it would NOT be the best idea to control one's consumer experience solely in that manner. The effects of TV marketing in the USA, and 'mass-consumerism' do not contribute to better buying decisions. I believe that subconscious buying = impulse buying.
The buying habits of Americans would benefit from change that comes from mindful consideration about what we really need, where things are made, and how we're going to afford things in the long term.
Re:emotions vs logic (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't it possible that your unconscious mind is so much more in-tune with your primitive and emotional id that it's better able to determine what decision will make you "happy" over the long term? People make job or purchasing decisions every day that may not be the best for their career advancement or financial well-being, but none of that matters much if they're satisfied.
unconsious != subconsious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shower Smarts, Too! (Score:5, Insightful)
My first reaction was, "Hell, I could have told them that!"
I thought it was common knowledge that one of the best ways to attack a problem is to review the materials, give it a rest, then come back with a fresh perspective? I've always attributed the bursts of inspiration that come from this to the "unconcious processor." Many people refer to it as "letting it churn in the back of your head." One way or another, most of the people I know seem to be cognizant of the fact that their unconcious is an excellent place to work problems out.
What really convinced me of the true power of unconcious thought was a puzzle someone gave me when I was a teen. The puzzle consisted of an 8 cell grid drawn on a piece of paper. You had to fill each cell with a number from 1 through 8. The challenge was to place the numbers such that no consecutive numbers were adjacent to each other in the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal directions. The guy who showed me the puzzle had supposedly known it for 20 years, but had never solved it. I tried my hand at it quite a bit before bed that night. Finally I just let it go for the moment so I could get some sleep. As I started to drift off, I saw the puzzle in my head. As I watched in my mind, all the numbers dropped into place one by one.
I popped out of bed, grabbed a piece of paper, and replicated what I had just visualized. Sure enough, it was the solution to the puzzle! My unconcious mind had solved a problem that my concious mind hadn't been able to tackle after hours of trying! After that, I learned to rely more on shoving a problem back into my unconcious, then waiting for a solution to work its way forward.
Re:A-ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. ???
2. ZZZ
3. !!!
4. $$$
See, you need to have the question (???) before the answer (!!!)...
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a big trade-off to this, though. One has to be careful in defining what you mean by "work on".
I'm in graduate school. Lots of maths, physics, etc. It's really easy to get bogged down in complicated problems. I've found that if I go to sleep after working *for a long time* on a problem, then it becomes easier to solve. However, I have to have REALLY worked on the problem. A couple of hours doesn't cut it; you have to really dig in, ignore slashdot (gasp!), get some Zeppelin on the radio, and maybe only take breaks for the bathroom. Only after several hours (at least 4, for me) of that does the "sleeping on it" do any good.
Re:This fits in nicely with another finding (Score:2, Insightful)