There's nothing I love more than a good power nap. In fact, in college, I pretty much had it down to a science: 22 minutes was all I needed to recharge for the rest of the day.
And as it turns out, I may have been unknowingly boosting my memory with each snooze. According to a new study done at the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, naps may boost your ability to process and store information, but only if you dream.
The study followed 99 college students who were asked to memorize a complex maze on a computer. They were then placed inside a virtual, 3-D version of the maze and asked to navigate to another spot within it. After doing this a few times, half of the students took a 90-minute nap while the other half stayed awake and watched videos. Five hours later, all the students were given the maze test again, and guess what? The nappers did better than the students who stayed awake. And the ones who dreamed about the maze did especially well – 10 times better than the nappers who didn't, to be exact.
And luckily for those who don't have enough time to take a 90-minute nap – like me – it doesn't even have to be a deep sleep to work. Researchers found that the students' dreaming and learning occurred after as little as one minute of non-REM sleep.
In that case, I think we should all push for nap time at work. Who's with me?
I couldn't agree more with the nap time at work! Although, I have to say, working out during the work day has really helped me to be more alert and productive!
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