Here’s some news that’ll made you want to chuck on your pajamas and head back to bed with a smile. New research from Saarland University has found that having a short power nap throughout the day can improve your memory by more than five times.
Researchers split participants into two groups and asked individuals to try to remember as much as possible from a combination of sequential and non-related single words. Half of the study was then asked to lie down and have a power nap between 45-60 minutes long, while the other half were asked to spend their downtime watching a quiet DVD.
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Participants were then re-tested to determine their ability to recall and collate the information presented to them previously.
What the study found was that the individuals who had a little snooze were five times more likely to remember the focus words as those who didn’t.
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Researchers conducting the study found that the reason for this is due to ‘sleep spindles’ which are bursts of activity in the brain that greatly assist in processing and categorising new information. Sleep spindles only happen while we’re resting and so by allowing a person to sleep for between 45 to 60 minutes during the day, people are more likely to retain and recall new information presented to them.
“The memory performance of the participants who had a power nap was just as good as it was before sleeping, that is, immediately after completing the learning phase,” Professor Axel Mecklinger told The Daily Mail.
“Strictly speaking, memory performance did not improve in the nap group relative to the levels measured immediately after the learning phase, but they did remain constant. A short nap at the office or in school is enough to significantly improve learning success. Wherever people are in a learning environment, we should think seriously about the positive effects of sleep.”
Researchers noted that people didn't require long periods of sleep for the memory recall to be boosted - a short amount of sleep after an intense period of learning was all that was required to see success.
So, who is heading back to be for an afternoon nap?
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