Napping and Memory

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

19 Jan 2009 06:14 PM

I'm a big fan of naps. Back in my radio days, I often kept a weird schedule -- up at four in the morning and at work by five-thirty. I'd be done for the day around two in the afternoon... and would often take an afternoon nap to recharge.

Even now that I'm keeping a more normal schedule, I often find myself wanting a nap around two in the afternoon. I enjoy curling up with the dogs and taking an afternoon snooze. I don't necessarily need to do it, but it's good to relax a bit and wake up with a fresh round of energy for the rest of the day.

For me, the ideal nap length is around two hours. I have a writer friend who naps for twenty to forty minutes and that's it. Different breaks work for different brains! But it looks like even a super-short nap can benefit your brain.

German researchers worked with volunteers to take a look at the benefit of naps on the brain -- especially on memory. One group of participants took no nap; another group took a six minute snooze. A third group sacked out for as much as forty-five minutes. After the nap, everyone took a memory test.

The folks who took the shortest naps did just as well on the word recall test as those who had a longer nap. Everyone who got some shut-eye did better than those who went napless.

The bottom line? Even a few minutes of sleep can help give your brain a little boost. Napping isn't just good for physical energy; it can help your mental state, too. So you may want to save ten minutes out of your lunch break for a little snooze -- it may help you tackle the afternoon's work with a sharper brain.

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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