Need a Nap? Sleep Like a Baby

Sleeping for 90 minutes at midday boosts the brain's ability to learn

(NEWSER) - Taking a nap after lunch helps the brain "reset" and prepare to assimilate new information, researchers say. "It's as though the e-mail inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact e-mails, you're not going to receive any more mail," says the author of a new study. "It's just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder." More»

New study shows a post-snooze memory boost

(NEWSER) - If you’re a fan of the afternoon nap, there’s no need to be ashamed—in fact, new research gives you the perfect excuse to stop reading this right now and go grab some midday shuteye. In the study, volunteers who napped for 100 minutes prior to completing a memorization test scored, on average, 20 percentage points higher than those who hadn’t napped. One important note: The test was taken a couple hours after the nap, in order for any post-snooze fuzziness to wear off, LiveScience reports. More»

It's more natural to sleep in two four-hour shifts

(NEWSER) - If you often wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep right away, you probably call it “insomnia”—but it might actually be more natural than sleeping for eight hours straight. "The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," a sleep historian tells Life’s Little Mysteries . What that means: Sleep came in two four-hour blocks, with a period of an hour or more in between during which people might pray, think about their dreams, or even visit with neighbors. More»

A title we'd all like to own...

(USER SUBMITTED) - Spain wrapped up what is believed to be its first siesta contest this weekend, and Pedro Soria Lopez, a 62-year-old Ecuadorian man, won by a snore. As funny as it is to say, it’s true: Each of 350 contestants were given 20 minutes to nap in a busy Madrid shopping center. Soria Lopez was able to sleep for 17 of those minutes—but his 70-decibal snoring gave him enough bonus points to beat out a rival who slept for 18 minutes. More»

So the boss can get more out of you

(NEWSER) - Remember in kindergarten they used to make us take naps? Turns out your office is a lot like kindergarten, and your boss should be handing you a mat, writes Tony Schwartz at Fast Company, and here's why:

• Memory: Subjects in a Harvard memory study who napped "sustained their performance all day long. Those who didn't nap performed increasingly poorly as the day wore on," Schwartz writes.
• Reaction time: Pilots given a 30-minute nap on long flights saw their reaction time improve by 16%; non-nappers' reactions fell off by 34%.