There is a massive body of academic research that demonstrates the key role sleep plays in supporting our physical health and mental wellbeing.

For creative people such as artists, getting the requisite amount of sleep is a vital component in providing a platform for their creativity to shine through.

However, many artists are guilty of neglecting their sleep as they strive to create the next masterpiece, which can have major consequences on their health.

A recent study highlighted the importance of undertaking relaxing pre-bedtime activities before sleep to improve the quality of shuteye a person achieves.

Mediating was found to be the optimum activity, with participants who practiced this for 30 minutes getting an average of just over eight hours sleep per night.

Establishing a structured sleep routine creates a platform for the three main stages of sleep to take place – namely light sleep, deep sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

It is the latter stage which is most notable for creative people, with numerous studies showing that it has the power to boost creative problem-solving skills.

Dreams generally occur during REM sleep, and there have been numerous links made with this and the creation of many works of art, innovations and inventions.

Jasper Johns’ first flag painting ‘Flag’ was imagined during a dream, while the melody for The Beatles’ hit ‘Yesterday’ also came to Paul McCartney when he was asleep.

According to leading neuroscientist Matthew Walker, REM sleep plays a crucial role in helping creative people undertake their best work.

The author of international best-selling book Why We Sleep has conducted extensive research into the subject, so understands how the REM stage contributes to the creative process.

“Sleep cycle by sleep cycle, REM sleep helps construct vast associative networks of information within the brain,” Walker wrote.

“REM sleep can even take a step back, so to speak, and divine overarching insights and gist: something akin to general knowledge—that is, what a collection of information means as a whole, not just an inert back catalogue of facts.

“We can awake the next morning with new solutions to previously intractable problems.”

While Walker’s views take a general overview of sleep and the creative process, they are largely in line with numerous other studies into the subject.

However, a 2016 study conducted by researchers in Israel found that certain types of creativity were linked to different elements of sleep.

Higher verbal creativity was associated with longer sleep duration and later sleep timing, while higher visual creativity was linked with poorer sleep quality.

They also found that participants who studied visual arts slept longer, later and had a worse night’s rest than the individuals who studied social sciences.

While those findings indicate that the links between creativity and sleep are complex, Walker is adamant the REM stage truly fuels artistic inspiration.

“NREM sleep helps transfer and make safe newly learned information into long-term storage sites of the brain,” Walker added.

“But it is REM sleep that takes these freshly minted memories and begins colliding them with the entire back catalogue of your life’s autobiography.

“These mnemonic collisions during REM sleep spark new creative insights as novel links are forged between unrelated pieces of information.”