There’s no doubt most of us at one time or another thought about how great it would be if there was a place in the office where we could escape for a few minutes for a power nap. Well, it seems bosses may want to start finding a place for people to do just that, because a new study found that even a small power nap can help improve a person’s memory.
Researchers in Germany say that as little as 45 minutes of nap time can increase a person’s memory up to five times. Seems the short snooze helps people retain information, and also shows “significant” increases in the ability to recall things.
The study had participants learn a large amount of words and word pairs, and then had half take a nap and the other half watch DVDs. Later when retested, those who got a little bit of shuteye were able to remember more of the word pairs than those who were kept awake.
As for why? Doctors think short term-memories are turned into long-term ones by something called sleep spindles, which are short bursts of activity that show up on brain scans.
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