Catnaps 'can boost your brain power'
Getting lots of sleep – and even nodding off for an hour or two – boosts brain power dramatically, according to scientists.
Conversely, the more hours people spend awake, the more sluggish their minds become, evidence shows.
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Hide AdThe findings may even indicate a link between older people sleeping less and suffering “senior moment” memory lapses.
New research by a team of US experts shows that memories are “downloaded” in the brain during a specific phase of sleep.
Scientists believe sleep is needed to clear the brain’s short-term memory storage and make space for new information.
Lead researcher Dr Matthew Walker, from the University of California at Berkeley, said: “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.”
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Hide AdIn one recent study the team divided 39 healthy young adults into two groups named “nap” and “no nap”.
At noon, all the volunteers were subjected to a rigorous learning task designed to tax the hippocampus – the brain region that helps store fact-based memories.
Two hours later the nap group took a 60-minute siesta while the no nap group stayed awake. Later the same day, at 6pm, participants were given a new round of learning exercises.
Those who had remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning, while the performance of the nappers improved.