Sleep Myths

Sleep myths (see: Good sleep for good learning for a more comprehensive list)

 Myth: Since we feel rested after sleep, sleep must be for resting. Ask anyone, even a student of medicine: What is the role of sleep? Nearly everyone will tell you: Sleep is for rest. Fact: Sleep is for optimizing the structure of memories. If it was for rest or energy saving, we would cover the saving by consuming just one apple per night. To effectively encode memories, mammals, birds and even reptiles need to turn off the thinking and do some housekeeping in their brains. This is vital for survival. This is why the evolution produced a defense mechanism against skipping sleep. If we do not get sleep, we feel miserable. We are not actually as wasted as we feel, the damage can be quickly repaired by getting a good night sleep. Our health may not suffer as much as our learning and intelligence. Feeling wasted in sleep deprivation is the result of our brain dishing punishment for not sticking to the rules of an intelligent form of life. Let the memory do restructuring in its programmed time
 Myth: Sleeping little makes you more competitive. Many people are so busy with their lives that they sleep only 3-4 hours per night. Moreover, they believe that sleeping little makes them more competitive. Many try to train themselves for minimum sleep. Donald Trump, in his newest book, tells you: "If you want to be a billionaire, sleep as little as possible". Fact: It is true that many geniuses slept little. Many business sharks slept even less. However, the only good formula for maximum long-term competitiveness is via maximum health and maximum creativity. If Trump sleeps 3 hours per night and enjoys his work, he is likely to run it on alertness hormones (ACTH, cortisol, adrenaline, etc.). His sleep is probably structured very well and he may extract more neural benefit per hour of sleep than an average 8-hours-per-night sleeper. Yet that should not make you try to beat yourself to action with an alarm clock. You will get shortest and maximum quality sleep only then when you perfectly hit your circadian low-time, i.e. when your body tells you "now it is time to sleep". Sleep in wrong hours, or sleep interrupted with an alarm clock is bound to undermine your intellectual performance and creativity. Occasionally, you may think that a loss on intellectual side will be counterbalanced with the gain on the action side (e.g. clinching this vital deal). Remember though, that you also need to factor in the long-term health consequences. Unless, of course, you think a heart attack at 45 is a good price to pay for becoming a billionaire
 Myth: Sleeping pills will help you sleep better. Fact: Benzodiazepines can help you sleep, but this sleep is of far less quality than naturally induced sleep (the term "sleeping pill" here does not apply to sleep-inducing supplements such as melatonin, minerals, or herbal preparations). Not only are benzodiazepines disruptive to the natural sleep stage sequence. They are also addictive and subject to tachyphylaxis (the more you take the more you need to take). Sleeping pills can be useful in circumstances where sleep is medically vital, and cannot be achieved by other means. Otherwise, avoid sleeping pills whenever possible
 Myth: Silence and darkness are vital for sleep. This may be the number one advice for insomniacs: use your sleeping room for sleep only, keep it dark and quiet. Fact: Silence and darkness indeed make it easier to fall asleep. They may also help maintain sleep when it is superficial. However, they are not vital. Moreover, for millions of insomniacs, focusing on peaceful sleeping place obscures the big picture: the most important factor that makes us sleep well, assuming good health, is the adherence to one's natural circadian rhythm! People who go to sleep along their natural rhythm can often sleep well in bright sunshine. They can also show remarkable tolerance to a variety of noises (e.g. loud TV, family chatter, the outside window noise, etc.). This is all possible thanks to the sensory gating that occurs during sleep executed "in phase". Absence of sensory gating in "wrong phase" sleep can easily be demonstrated by lesser changes to AEPs (auditory evoked potentials) registered at various parts of the auditory pathway in the brain. Noises will wake you up if you fail to enter deeper stages of sleep, and this failure nearly always comes from sleeping at the wrong circadian phase (e.g. going to sleep too early). If you suffer from insomnia, focus on understanding your natural sleep rhythm. Peaceful sleeping place is secondary (except in cases of impaired sensory gating as in some elderly). Insomniacs running their daily ritual of perfect darkness, quiet, stresslessness and sheep-counting are like a stranded driver hoping for fair winds instead of looking for the nearest gas station. Even worse, if you keep your place peaceful, you run the risk of falling asleep early enough to be reawakened by the quick elimination of the homeostatic component of sleep. Learn the principles of healthy sleep that will make you sleep in all conditions. Only then focus on making your sleeping place as peaceful as possible. For more see: Good sleep, good learning
 Myth: People are of morning or evening type. Fact: This is more of a misnomer than a myth. Evening type people, with chronotherapy, can easily be made to wake up with the sun. What people really differ in is the period of their body clock, as well as the sensitivity to and availability of stimuli that reset that rhythm (e.g. light, activity, stress, etc.). People with an unusually long natural day and low sensitivity to resetting stimuli will tend to work late and wake up late. Hence the tendency to call them "evening type". Those people do not actually prefer evenings, they simply prefer longer working days. The lifestyle affects the body clock as well. A transition from a farmer's lifestyle to a student's lifestyle will result in a slight change to the sleeping rhythm. This is why so many students feel as if they were of the evening type
 Myth: Avoid naps. Fact: Naps may indeed worsen insomnia in people suffering from DSPS, esp. if taken too late in the day. Otherwise, naps are highly beneficial to intellectual performance. It is possible to take naps early in the day without affecting one's sleeping rhythm. Those naps must fall before or inside the so-called dead zone where a nap does not produce a phase response (i.e. shift in the circadian rhythm)
 Myth: Night shifts are unhealthy. Fact: People working in night shifts are often forced out of work by various ailments such as a heart condition. However, it is not night shifts that are harmful. It is the constant switching of the sleep rhythm from day to night and vice versa. It would be far healthier to let night shift people develop their own regular rhythm in which they would stay awake throughout the night. It is not night wakefulness that is harmful. It is the way we force our body do things it does not want to do
 Myth: Going to bed at the same time is good for you. Fact: Many sleep experts recommend going to sleep at the same time every day. Regular rhythm is indeed a form of chronotherapy recommended in many circadian rhythm problems. However, people with severe DSPS may simply find it impossible to go to sleep at the same time everyday. Such forced attempts will only result in a self-feeding cycle of stress and insomnia. In such cases, the struggle with one's own rhythm is simply unhealthy. Unfortunately, people suffering from DSPS are often forced into a "natural" rhythm by their professional and family obligations
 Myth: People who sleep less live longer. In 2002, Dr Kripke compared the length of sleep with longevity (1982 data from a cancer risk survey). He figured out that those who sleep 6-7 hours live longer than those who sleep 8 hours and more. No wonder that a message started spreading that those who sleep less live longer. Fact: The best longevity prognosis is ensured by sleeping in compliance with one's natural body rhythm. Those who stick to their own good rhythm often sleep less because their sleep is better structured (and thus more refreshing). "Naturally sleeping" people live longer. Those who sleep against their body call, often need to clock more hours and still do not feel refreshed. Moreover, disease is often correlated with increased demand for sleep. Infectious diseases are renowned for a dramatic change in sleep patterns. When in coma, you are not likely to be adding years to your life. Correlation is not causation
 Myth: A nap is a sign of weakness. Fact: A nap is not a sign of weakness, ill-health, laziness or lack of vigor. It is a philogenetic remnant of a biphasic sleeping rhythm. Not all people experience a significant mid-day slump in mental performance. It may be well masked by activity, stress, contact with people, sport, etc. However, if you experience a slump around the 6th to 8th hour of your day, taking a nap can dramatically boost your performance in the second half of the day
 Myth: Alarm clock can help you regulate the sleep rhythm. Fact: An alarm clock can help you push your sleep rhythm into the desired framework, but it will rarely help you accomplish a healthy sleep rhythm. The only tried-and-true way to accomplish a healthy sleep and a healthy sleep rhythm is to go to sleep only when you are truly sleepy, and to wake up naturally without external intervention
 Myth: Being late for school is bad. Fact: Kids who persistently cannot wake up for school should be left alone. Their fresh mind and health are far more important. 60% of kids under 18 complain of daytime tiredness and 15% fall asleep at school (US, 1998). Parents who regularly punish their kids for being late for school should immediately consult a sleep expert as well as seek help in attenuating the psychological effects of the trauma resulting from the never ending cycle of stress, sleepiness and punishment
 Myth: Being late for school is a sign of laziness. Fact: If a young person suffers from DSPS, it may have perpetual problems with getting up for school in time. Those kids are often actually brighter than average and are by no means lazy. However, their optimum circadian time for intellectual work comes after the school or even late into the evening. At school they are drowsy and slow and simply waste their time. If chronotherapy does not help, parents should consider later school hours or even home-schooling
 Myth: We can sleep 3 hours per day. Many people enviously read about Tesla's or Edison's sleeping habits and hope they could train themselves to sleep only 3 hours per day having far more time for other activities. Fact: This might work if you plan to party all the time. And if your health is not a consideration. And if your intellectual capacity is not at stake. You can sleep 3 hours and survive. However, if your aspirations go beyond that, you should rather sleep exactly as much as your body wants. That is an intelligent man's optimum. With your improved health and intellectual performance, your lifetime gains will be immense
 Myth: We can adapt to polyphasic sleep. Looking at the life of lone sailors, many people believe they can adopt polyphasic sleep and save many hours per day. In polyphasic sleep, you take only 4-5 short naps during the day totaling less than 4 hours. There are many "systems" differing in the arrangement of naps. There are also many young people ready to suffer the pains to see it work. Although a vast majority will drop out, a small circle of the most stubborn ones will survive a few months and will perpetuate the myth with a detriment to public health. Fact: We are basically biphasic and all attempts to change the inbuilt rhythm will result in loss of health, time, and mental capacity. Polyphasic sleep has not been designed for maximum alertness (let alone maximum creativity). It has been designed for maximum alertness in conditions of sleep deprivation (as in solo yachting). A simple rule is: when sleepy, go to sleep; while asleep, continue uninterrupted. See: The myth of polyphasic sleep
 Myth: Sleep before midnight is more valuable. Fact: Sleep is most valuable if it comes at the time planned by your own body clock mechanism. If you are not sleepy before midnight, forcing yourself can actually ruin your night if you wake up early
 Myth: The body will always crave excess sleep as it craves excess food. Some people draw a parallel between our tendency to overeat with sleep. They believe that if we let the body dictate the amount of sleep, it will always ask for more than needed. As a result, they prefer to cut sleep short with an alarm clock to "optimize" the amount of sleep they get. Fact: Unlike storage of fat, there seems to be little evolutionary benefit to extra sleep. Probably, our typical 6-8 hour sleep is just enough to do all "neural housekeeping". People with sleep deficit may indeed tend to sleep obscenely long. However, once they catch up and get into the rhythm, the length of their sleep is actually likely to decrease!
 Myth: Magnesium, folates, and other supplements can help you sleep better. Fact: Nutrients needed for good health are also good for sleep. However, supplementation is not likely to play a significant role in resolving your sleep problems. Vitamins may help if you are in deficit, but a vast majority of sleep disorders in society come from the lack of respect or understanding of the circadian rhythm. Only wisely administered melatonin is known to have a beneficial effect on the advancement of sleep phase. If you are having problems with sleep, read Good sleep for good life. As for supplements, stick to a standard healthy diet. That should suffice
 Myth: It is best to wake up with the sun. Fact: You should wake up at the time when your body decides it got enough of sleep. If this happens to be midday, a curtain over the window will prevent you from being woken up by the sun. At the same time sun may help you reset your body clock and help you wake up earlier. People who wake up naturally with the sun are indeed among the healthiest creatures on the planet. However, if you do not wake up naturally before 4 am, trying to do so with the help of an alarm clock will only add misery to your life
 Myth: You cannot change the inherent period length of your body clock. Fact: With various chronotherapeutic tricks it is possible to change the period of the clock slightly. It can be reset or advanced harmlessly by means of melatonin, bright light, exercise, meal timing, etc. It can also be reset in a less healthy way: with an alarm clock. However, significant lifestyle changes may be needed to resolve severe cases of DSPS or ASPS. The therapy may be stressful, and the slightest deviation from the therapeutic regimen may result in the relapse to an undesirable rhythm. Those who employ free-running sleep may take the easiest way out of the period length problem: stick to the period that is the natural outcome of your current lifestyle
See also: Sleep FAQ
Creativity myths (see: Genius and Creativity for a more comprehensive list)
 Myth: You must be born with a creative mind! Fact: Some kids indeed show an incredible curiosity and rage to master. However, there are many techniques that can help you multiply your creativity. Creativity is trainable. See Genius and Creativity for some hints
 Myth: If you miss childhood, your genius is lost! Fact: Human brain is plastic by definition. In many fields of learning, childhood neglect makes later progress harder; however, training can always produce miracles. Childhood is very important for growth, but if you lost it, you can still catch up in many areas with intense training
 Myth: Do not memorize! Fact: This fallacy comes from the fact that many sources fail to delineate the full spectrum of knowledge applicability from dry useless facts to highly abstract reasoning rules. Understanding, thinking, problem solving, creativity, etc. are all based on knowledge. This rule should rather be formulated as: Knowledge selection is critical for success in learning. The correct and non pejorative definition of the word memorize is to: "commit knowledge to memory". Along this definition, you can say: Do memorize! Just make a smart selection of things to learn. See: Smart and dumb learning for a discussion and examples
 Myth: Proliferation of geniuses is a threat to humanity. Fact: Most of the good things that surround us are a product of nature, love, or human genius. It is true that the output of genius minds is often used for evil purposes; however, halting genius would be equivalent to halting or reversing the global progress
 Myth: If you do something stupid, so are you! Fact: Human brain is an imperfectly programmed machine. It never stops learning and verifying its errors. Its knowledge base is painfully limited. The same brain may be able to disentangle the complexities of the string theory and then slip on simple sums. Notes left by Newton, Leibnitz or Babbage show that they erred on their way to great discovery or meandered in an entirely wrong direction. We measure genius by its top accomplishments, not by the lack of failures
 Myth: Geniuses do not forget things! Fact: Genius brains are made of the same substance as average ones. Consequently, their memories are subject to the exactly same laws of forgetting. All knowledge in the human brain declines along a negatively exponential curve. Forgetting is as massive in a genius mind as it is in any other. The best tools against forgetting are (1) good knowledge representation (e.g. mnemonic techniques) and (2) review (based on active recall and spaced repetition). Geniuses may hold an advantage by developing powerful representation skills that make learning much easier. They often develop those skills early and without a conscious effort. However, the science of mnemonics is well developed and you can see a dramatic difference in your knowledge representation skills after a week-long course
 Myth: Geniuses sleep little! Fact: When looking at Edison, Tesla, or Churchill it is easy to believe that cutting down on sleep does not seem to pose a problem in creative achievement. Those who try to work creatively in conditions of sleep deprivation will quickly discover though that fresh mind is by far more important than those 2-3 hours one can save by sleeping less. A less visible side effect of sleep deprivation is the effect on memory consolidation and creativity in the long term. Lack of sleep hampers remembering. It also prevents creative associations built during sleep. It is not true that geniuses sleep less. Einstein would work best if he got a solid nine hours of sleep
 Myth: Early to ripe, early to rot! Fact: Terman Study contradicts this claim. A majority of precocious kids go on to do great things in life
 Myth: You need a degree! Fact: Edison got only 3 months of formal schooling. Lincoln spent less than a year at school. Benjamin Franklin's formal education ended when he was 10. Graham Bell was mostly family trained and self-taught. Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Dean Kamen, and Bill Gates were all college drop-outs. Isaac Newton found school boring and was considered by many a mediocre student. However, there is one thing they all had in common: they loved books and could spend whole days reading and studying
 Myth: Genius can be evil! Fact: Evil, by definition, is foolish. One can show genius skills in a narrow field and still be an evil person, but an evil human being does not deserve a title of a genius. True wisdom can reach far beyond a narrow field of specialization. It will inevitably encompass the matters of ethics. This is why all true geniuses are deeply concerned with the future of humanity. See: Goodness of knowledge
 Myth: Be unique! This boosts creativity! Fact: The relationship between uniqueness and creativity is reverse. It is true that many creative people are unique or strange in behavior. This comes from their creative way of looking at things and unwillingness to stick to those forms of tradition that defy reason. By no means an effort towards uniqueness will boost creativity. It is true that Einstein smoked a pipe, but it does not mean that you will be more of a genius if you take on smoking a pipe
 Myth: TV makes you stupid! Fact: TV or radio can be harmful if you are unable to control what you watch or listen, or if you are unable to optimize the proportion of your time spent on broadcasts. Otherwise, TV is still hard to match in its ability to present to you a pre-selected and emphatically graphic video material for the purposes of education or getting informed. Video education based on the material from reputable channels may be the most efficient form of tutor-less education. Swap MTV for Discovery, and make a good selection. Although you cannot employ incremental video watching yet (cf. incremental reading), a dose of daily DVDR viewing will help you stay up to date with the news and brush up your general education
 Myth: Curiosity killed the cat! Fact: As long as you stay within the boundaries of politeness, live by a better proverb: Curiosity is your pass to the kingdom of knowledge
 Myth: Mozart effect. Listening to Mozart increases intelligence. Fact: Mozart was one of the greatest musical geniuses in history. His music might be used in musicality training and produce far better neural effects than, say, today's pop music. However, Mozart's impact on neural growth cannot be verifiably judged better than that of solving cross-word puzzles, singing, playing soccer or learning chemistry. To a philistine, Mozart may do as much good as a recitation of Goethe's poems to a baboon. Neither is listening to Mozart superior to listening to your favorite pieces of music for the sake of boosting "happy brain messengers". Mozart has been cannibalized by the accelerated learning industry as a simple way towards a quick buck. Few gimmicks are as simple as packaging a Mozart CD with a label "Learn 10 times faster". Mozart Effect powerfully illustrates the myth-making power of money. This power has also spawned other cheap "learning solutions" such as learning while sleeping, learning while relaxing, or memory-boosting supplements. Regrettably, even highly respected and reputable websites, journals or TV program fall prey to these catchy memes. Your vigilance needs to triple in these areas
 Myth: We use only 0.1% of our brain power. Some reputable researchers derived the 0.1% figure from a simple calculation involving the number of neurons and the numbers of synapses residing in the human brain. The resulting figure seemed to imply an astounding computational capacity. Fact: The brain is energetically a very expensive organ. Only major improvements in human diet in the course of human evolution made it possible to provide for a substantial gain in the brain mass. If the 0.1% or even the 10% claim was to be true, the unused portions of the brain would quickly fall prey to natural selection resulting in energy-saving shrinkage of the brain. A living brain even prunes those circuits that are of little use and sprouts new connections there where they are needed. Portions of brain are programmed to execute highly specialized functions, other portions can easily be used to store vast expanses of declarative knowledge. The process of forgetting has been fine tuned to maximize the use of the existing storage in the reproductive lifetime. Nevertheless, it is not likely we ever run out of memory space when using the trick of spaced repetition to maximize the inflow of new information to memory
 Myth: Gifted kids become genius adults. Fact: It is the personality and the training that determine the final outcome. Most of gifted kids are lucky to do well; however, giftedness should not be taken for granted
See also: Genius and creativity FAQ
SuperMemo myths
Ever since it was conceived, SuperMemo had to struggle with myths slowing down its popularization. Preventing the reappearance of myths appears to be a never-ending battle. The knowledge about SuperMemo has grown to a substantial volume. Not all users can afford reading dozens of articles. Many are prone to arrive to the same wrong conclusions independently of others. Some of these myths are rooted in general myths of memory (as above). Others seem to spring from the common sense thinking about learning. Here are some most damaging myths related to spaced repetition and SuperMemo:
 Myth: SuperMemo can only be used for learning languages. SuperMemo gained most popularity by its effectiveness in learning vocabulary of foreign languages. Hence the myth that SuperMemo is a program for learning languages. A related myth is that it is a program that can only be used for cramming facts, while it cannot effectively be used for complex sciences, rules, modeling, problem solving, creativity, etc. Fact: SuperMemo can be used in any form of declarative learning (i.e. learning of things you can find in textbooks as opposed to learning to ride a bike, etc.). Word-pair learning appears to be the simplest application, while learning complex facts and rules of science may require far more skills in formulating the learning material. This is why many users are indeed unsuccessful when trying to learn, for example, astronomy. If you read 20 rules of formulating knowledge you will realize the number of snags that have to be overcome. Those snags contribute to Myth #1 on the limited applicability of SuperMemo
 Myth: SuperMemo is a great tool for cramming. Many first-time users hear it by word of mouth that SuperMemo is a great tool for cramming. They are ready to buy the program only for the purpose of an exam coming in a week. Fact: SuperMemo is nearly useless for cramming knowledge that is supposed to last less than a week. For fast cramming to an exam, use traditional review, recall, repeat approach known to crammers for ages. The power of SuperMemo increases in proportion to the expected lifetime of knowledge in your memory. SuperMemo is useful if you need to remember things for a year (e.g. legal code). It is more useful if you learn for a decade (e.g. a programming language). But it is unsurpassed in gathering lifetime knowledge (e.g. anatomy, geography, history, etc.)
 Myth: SuperMemo is hard to use. Several thousand FAQs and the 5 MB help file make many think SuperMemo is complex. It may appear like a program dedicated to heavyweight professionals. This makes it seem like a program of little use to mere mortals. Fact: It is true that some users start from the "wrong end" or wrong pre-conceived assumptions. They may indeed get lost or frustrated. However, a well-tested and certified fact is that SuperMemo can be used effectively after a 3 minute introduction! A great part of its power (perhaps a half) can be harnessed by learning just two operations: Add new (adding new questions and answers) and Learn (making repetitions). Naturally, things get gradually more complex when you start adding multimedia, foreign language support, templates, categories, etc. At the other end, incremental reading, a powerful reading and learning technique, may require months of training before bringing quality results. You can easily start using SuperMemo today, and gradually build skills needed to expand its power
 Myth: SuperMemo is useless. Some people truly believe that the natural mechanisms of building long-term memories are superior to spaced repetition. Fact: Our brain prefers "easy" over "important". We excel at remembering celebrity trivia. We are dismal at recalling mathematical formulas learned in high school. In addition, those who deny the value of spaced repetition usually fail to appreciate the value of associative memory, or fail to delineate the distinction between cramming facts and learning universal inference rules. There are many traps of ignorance that prevent people from ever trying SuperMemo. See: SuperMemo is Useless and No force in the world can convince me to SuperMemo
 Myth: As you add more material to SuperMemo, your repetition loads mount beyond being manageable. No item added to SuperMemo is considered "memorized for good". For that reasons, all items are subject to review sooner or later. This makes many believe that there is an inevitable increase in the cost of repetitions. Fact: It is true that a large number of outstanding repetitions is the primary excuse for SuperMemo drop-outs. However, computer simulations as well as real-life measurements show that, with the constant daily learning time, the acquisition of new knowledge does not visibly slow down in time (except the very first couple of months). In other words, from a long-term perspective, the acquisition of new knowledge is nearly linear. Older items are repeated less and less quickly leaving room for new material. The exponential nature of this "fading" explains why we can continue with a heavy inflow of new material for decades
 Myth: SuperMemo repetitions take too much time. Many users struggle with an increasing load of repetitions and may conclude that the effort is not worth the outcome. Fact: Just 3 well-selected items memorized per day may produce a better effect than a hundred crammed facts. This means that even a minute per day will make a world of difference, as long as you pay attention to what you learn. Not all knowledge is worth the effort of 99% retention. High retention should be reserved only for mission-critical facts and rules. Last but not least: knowledge formulating skills may cut the learning time in beginners by more than 90%
 Myth: SuperMemo is expensive. At prices approaching $40 for the newest Windows version, SuperMemo may seem too expensive for users in poorer countries of Africa, Asia or even Eastern Europe. Fact: Older versions of SuperMemo for DOS and Windows are free. Its on-line version is still free. Even the newest version of SuperMemo is available free for contributors to SuperMemo Library
 Myth: SuperMemo requires a computer. Fact: See: paper and pencil SuperMemo
 Myth: We do not need SuperMemo, all we need is to build an index to knowledge sources. With multiple on-line sources of knowledge, some people are tempted to believe that memorizing things is no longer needed. All we supposedly need to learn is how to access and use these external sources of knowledge. Fact: Knowledge stored in human memory is associative in nature. In other words, we are able to suddenly combine two known ideas to produce a new quality: an invention. We cannot (yet) effectively associate ideas that live on the Internet or in an encyclopedia. All creative geniuses need knowledge to form new concepts. The extent of this knowledge will vary, but the creative output does depend on the volume of knowledge, its associative nature, and its abstractness (i.e. its relevance in building models). Lastly, even "index to knowledge" is subject to forgetting and needs to be maintained via repetition or review. See: SuperMemo is Useless
 Myth: Many people are successful without using SuperMemo, hence its importance is secondary. Fact: Neither Darwin nor Newton had access to computers, yet computer illiteracy may make today's scientist entirely impotent. Similarly, with a growing importance of knowledge, neglecting the competitive advantage of a wider and stable knowledge will increasingly limit your chances of successful career in science, engineering, medicine, politics, etc. You can live without SuperMemo, but it can definitely raise your learning to a new level
 Myth: Natural mechanism of selecting important memories is good enough. We do not need a crutch. The evolution produced an effective forgetting mechanism that frees our memory from space-consuming and perhaps irrelevant garbage. This mechanism proved efficient enough to build the amazing human civilization. Consequently, many believe that there cannot be much room for improvement. Fact: The forgetting mechanism was built in abstraction from our wishes and decisions. It only spares memories that are used frequently enough. Now though, we are smart enough to decide on our own which knowledge is vital and which is not. A single peek into a dictionary may often take more time than the lifetime cost of refreshing the same word in SuperMemo. And that is the least spectacular example. Human history is rich in monumental errors coming from ignorance. NASA's confusion of imperial and metric units cost a lost Mars probe. Confusion of comma with a dot in Fortran, cost a Venus probe. Errors in English communication caused many aerial and maritime catastrophes. A piece of knowledge in surgeon's mind may be worth the life of his patient. Forgetting is too precarious to leave mission-critical knowledge in its hands. SuperMemo puts you in command
 Myth: Developing photographic memory is a better investment. Fact: A great deal of claims related to photographic memory are vastly exaggerated or plain false. Mnemonic tools are vital for efficient learning, but they are no substitute to SuperMemo. They are complementary. Techniques such as Photoreading use the same catchy photo-scanner concept. Unlike SuperMemo, they are easy to publicize and comprehend. However, SuperMemo's superiority in the arsenal of a student's tools is easily demonstrable with plain facts of science, as well as in the practice of learning. For more see: articles at supermemo.com
 Myth: Memorizing multiplication table only deprives one of computing skills. Like kids using calculators, those who memorize the multiplication table with SuperMemo are supposed to be less numerate (i.e. less fluent in their calculation skills). Fact: Memorizing the basic 9x9 multiplication table is the cornerstone of all calculation on paper and in mind. Memorizing the 20x20 multiplication table is also a good way of training basic multiplication skills. It is hardly possible to actually memorize the 20x20 table. Intuitively, most students do it the right way by using the combination of their familiar 9x9 table and their adding skills. For example, 14*16 is remembered as 10*14+6*14=140+6*10+6*4=140+60+24=224. This means that the student uses (1) a simple decomposition, (2) zero-shifting rule, (3) the 9x9 table once (to figure out that 4*6=24) and then (4) addition (to add the resulting three numbers). In contrast to the myth, all students who learned the 20x20 multiplication table report a dramatic increase in their multiplication skills. Alas, there is relatively very little carry over to division skills. These require additional learning material and slightly more complex skills (see: Division Table)
 Myth: SuperMemo is so simple that it is not needed (PalmGear user's comment). Fact: Simplicity of an idea usually enhances its usefulness. The underlying idea of SuperMemo (increasing intervals) is indeed very simple. However, doing all computations by hand makes little sense, and not employing spaced repetition is bound to negatively affect learning. Consequently, SuperMemo is necessary for knowledge where retention levels are to reach above 80%. Otherwise, any disorganized system of repetitions becomes very wasteful. Ironically, many users of SuperMemo for Windows complain that the program is too complex (see Myth: SuperMemo is Hard)
 Myth: The main learning bottleneck is short-term memory, hence SuperMemo is not needed. Some educators live by the wrong conviction that it is the short-term memory that is the bottleneck of learning. This comes from common daily observations of devastating leak in sensory memory. We retain only a fraction of what we perceive. Fact: The opposite is true. Short-term memory is indeed very leaky. However, we can retain in short-term memory far more than we can retain over the long term. The myth is partly derived from the conviction that long-term memory is virtually limitless. The error comes from noticing the huge long-term storage, while neglecting the difficulty with which we retain knowledge in that storage. An advanced student will quickly learn all mnemonic tricks necessary to retain far more in his or her short-term memory than (s)he is able to convert into a lasting knowledge
 Myth: Drilling fluency is more important that drilling for retention. Some students and educators believe that they need to train for quick retrieval which often determines the performance (e.g. as in IQ tests). They believe that clocking the repetition improves the retention. Fact: The myth originates from the research by B.F. Skinner's student Ogden Lindsley in the 1960s, which shows how fluency training can demonstrably enhance learning (e.g. in classroom conditions). Lindsley's fluency research does not translate directly to spaced repetition methodology though due to the problem of spacing effect (see also: Memory myth: Fluency reflects memory strength). The procedure that may enhance recall after a single session is not necessarily optimum for repeated active recall in spaced repetition. A clocked drill is more likely to evoke the spacing effect as retrieval difficulty enhances memory consolidation. Consequently, a timed drill will actually increase the frequency of repetitions and overall repetition workload per item. In SuperMemo terms, the effect is similar to an attempt to reduce the forgetting index below 3%. Assuming maximum attention, slow considerate repetition is likely to leave more durable memory traces than a clocked fluency drill. Fluency training makes sense for knowledge whose retrieval is time-critical. This may refer to procedural learning, training before tests based on fluency, foreign language training, reading fluency, etc. However, for fields where creativity is more important than speed, or where solving the problem is more important than solving it fast, "slow" (i.e. meticulous and considerate) learning is recommended. Independently, in SuperMemo, it is the user who determines the grading criteria in learning. Fluency may, but does not have to be included in self-assessment. In other words, although speedy drills are not recommended, SuperMemo does not prevent the user from employing them

Language learning myths
Antimoon has compiled another myth list related to language learning: Language learning: Myths and facts.
I personally disagree with classifying the tolerance for language errors as a strategic mistake (myth: "It's OK to make mistakes"). Antimoon's approach assumes that the student's goals is to reach a perfect command of the language, while most students are rather interested in maximum communication fluency in minimum time. When learning English myself, I was primarily interested in communication while accepting a large margin of tolerance for non-semantic errors. This left me with a legacy of wrong habits that are hard to root out. Yet my communication goals have been accomplished on target. Given a choice, I would chose the same strategy again. This is why I would cut Antimoon's myth list by one position