Do naps really have a positive effect on a person? Well in order to find out, a NASA funded experiment was conducted and the sleep researchers came out with some quite surprising conclusions.

The researchers found that the longer the naps, the better. In other words, after lunch, you should probably try to sleep a little more. Yes, thank science for this.

It was also showed that cognitive functions, such as working memory performance benefited from naps. Working memory involves focusing on one particular task while holding other tasks in memory. For instance, when you are playing Driver 2 on your PC, you have to concentrate on losing the police's tail, while keeping in mind that you have to take the second road to the left and then the first to the right as well. Unfortunately and surprisingly enough, vigilance and alertness do not really benefit from naps at all. These two are dependent on the total amount of sleep obtained during the whole day rather than on the short naps.

The sleep researchers also found that you probably should not try to take a nap at night either. Thanks to its biological clock, you body more or less knows when its daytime and nighttime. If you try to take a nap at night, you body shuts down (sort of because it is still working a lot), thinking that you are going to sleep. It is hence relatively difficult to wake up after a couple of hours and the grogginess that results may last for as long as one hour.

To conclude, it was also found that naps are short-term fix, offering only temporary boost in mental acuity. Doesn't matter, from now on, I'm taking a nap before every exam I have.

Ah well, I don't know about you but I am feeling a little sleepy right now. Or maybe nap-py. No? Oh, all right then. I wasn't that boring I guess.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Other science issues (not too complicated don't you worry) can be found at:

Not Scientific Science
Archive

NotScientific

21.12.06 Front Page

Back Issue Page