Baseball Is All About Getting Enough Sleep

Learning the game of baseball is all about getting enough sleep. Going through the life time of one little league baseball player learning the game helps one understand the importance of sleep, attention, learning, and memory and how they can fit together to obtain success for the new ball player. It is like a cycle that helps the improvement of your memory, attention and learning. The cool thing is that it all comes from sleep. After the boy learns baseball, he can use these same concepts to learn and retain anything his heart desires.

Getting enough sleep does not only help with mental and physical exhaustion, but sleep helps in all aspects of life. Take for instance a little league ball player trying to learn the game of baseball, the sleep one gets the night before the first practice will help the player retain the information better and be able to withstand the whole practice without getting tired. Also when one sleeps it gives the brain time to rest and heal. When one gets enough sleep, it will help them think outside the box and funnel creative thinking to the brain. Healing takes place when one sleeps; even smalls cuts on the skin surface can be seen to heal overnight. Sleep will help maintain body
weight and cause the metabolism of the body to stay strong. The little ball player can now pay attention during practice instead of picking dandelions and loosing attention.

Paying attention can help reach goals and help one succeed.
Focused attention has helped in situations for this little ball player on the diamond in tight games. The ability to “tune out” what is going on in the stands can cause a pitcher to play his best. One example of focused attention is when a batter is up to bat trying to hit a round ball with a round bat. This is not an easy task, but if the batter stays focus on the ball leaving the pitcher’s hand and picks up the spin of the ball in the 0.458 seconds it takes the ball to travel to home, then he can be successful. Benefits of having a longer attention span are learning more, staying on task and the amount of knowledge that can be retained is greatly increased by having a longer attention
span.

Learning is the permanent change in behavior due to experiences in life. To use another baseball example, learning to throw a ball as a young player was done with drill after drill of stepping and throwing. Keeping the elbow high and throwing over and over again was the experiences needed to learn this behavior. Throwing a baseball overhanded is not a natural motion of the arm. It is learned behaviors that with many drills of experience can at a high school age become natural and now the player relies on instinct. Learning becomes easier as the attention span gets longer and the attention span is longer when one is rested and healthy. It is a cycle.

Memory is retention of knowledge. Your brain remembers the actions, skills, and tasks needed to survive. Coming back to the baseball analogy, practicing baseball will help your muscles remember the actions needed and then in a game, one can turn off the thinking side of the brain and just play with instinct. The tasks must be repeated over and over to retain this memory. When one is studying, information is kept in memory longer when it is made personal, when one can find cues to the memory and when one minimizes interferences. None of this can happen without proper rest, focused attention and repeated learning.

Sleep affects everything. Sleep affects your focus and attention level and can affect learning and memory. We have witnessed a baseball player learning the game of baseball. With sleep and attention, he can practice over and over the skills needed to learn the game of baseball. At some point his memory takes over to play the game with instincts. The professional players hardly have time to think with a 90 mph fastball coming straight at them. It is a cycle that begins with proper amounts of sleep