Maximum Consolidation

Systems Neuroscience nearly killed me. It still might, I don't yet have my grade. In an effort to grab an average grade I decided I needed to study harder than I ever had before for anything. Problem was, I only had 72 hours or less. Solution? Maximum consolidation.

I decided to apply some of what I learned from this same course. See, I've found you can only study effectively for a minority of the hours in a day. Also, you need sleep to consolidate long term memories. Also, REM cycles are about 100 minutes or so. For me, about 2.5-3 hours is usually a good time to wake if I have to.

My goal was to devise a schedule where I could study effectively for every waking minute, and consolidate my studying when I needed to. I settled on waking periods of 5-6 hours and sleeping periods around 3 hours. I'm an excellent sleeper, so falling asleep at odd hours was never an issue.

The following is my actual schedule I took:
• Sunday, 6pm: Back from kitesurfing
• Monday, 1:30am: Sleep
• 6:30am: Wake
• 1:00pm: Sleep
• 4:00pm: Wake
• 9:30pm: Sleep
• Tuesday, 12:30am: Wake
• 5:30am: Sleep
• 8:30am: Wake
• 2:45pm: Sleep
• 5:15pm: Wake
• Wednesday, 12:30am: Sleep
• 4:15am: Wake
• 9:00am: Exam

The results were fantastic. I was able to focus, and memorize terms faster than I ever had before. There were a few side effects. It took me a week to be not so tired. Also I felt like a week had gone by in the 2 days I was doing this. All worth it for a passing grade. I'm crossing my fingers.