Power naps of just 45 minutes ‘make memory 5 times better’
A POWER nap of just 45 minutes can boost memory by five times, research has found.
A short doze helps you to retain information you have just learned and ‘ significantly’ improves recall, scientists said – meaning naps really could help students revising for exams.
Participants in the study learned 90 single words and 120 unconnected word pairs such as ‘milk taxi’. Some then watched a DVD while others slept.
When they were then retested, those who had taken a nap could remember more word groups.
Professor Axel Mecklinger, from the team of scientists at Saarland University in Germany, said: ‘Even a short sleep lasting 45 to 60 minutes produces a five-fold improvement in information retrieval from memory.’
He said the group who watched a DVD were ‘significantly worse’ at remembering words, adding: ‘ 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.’
The scientists said that during sleep, there are bursts of activity in the hippocampus region of the brain, known as sleep spindles, which play an important role in consolidating newly learned information.
Researcher Sara Studte, a graduate biologist, said these show up on an electro- encephalogram test (EEG), which detects the brain’s electrical activity, adding: ‘A person’s memory of something is stronger, the greater the number of sleep spindles appearing in the EEG.’
Concluding the study, which was published in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Professor Mecklinger said: ‘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.
‘ Enhancing information recall through sleeping doesn’t require us to stuff bulky tomes under our pillow. A concentrated period of learning followed by a short relaxing sleep is all that’s needed.’