Study Finds Naps Refresh the Brain and Help With Learning
LiveScience.com reports that a very small study of 39 people found that naps can refresh your brain and help you learn. In the study the people taking naps did better on a learning test than those who did not.
"Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap," said study author Matthew Walker, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The study involved 39 healthy young adults who were placed into either a nap or no-nap group. At noon, all the participants performed a learning task intended to exercise the hippocampus, a region of the brain that helps store fact-based memories. Both groups performed at comparable levels on this test.
Then at 2 p.m., the nap group took a 90-minute siesta while the no-nap group stayed awake. Later that day, at 6 p.m., participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. In contrast, those who napped did markedly better and actually improved in their capacity to learn.
This is not the first study to suggest that naps can be beneficial. Catching up on sleep can be difficult but a short nap can certainly help. Unfortunately, finding time for a nap is an easy thing to do for most people. That's why there are people working on ideas like the Sleep Box to offer ways for people to catch up on sleep.
