Napping Can Make You Smarter
The latest research shows that a nap proved to make a person smarter. Napping can refresh and boost the capacity of the brain’s ability to learn dramatically.
Maybe for you who too busy, it is difficult to use the time for a while for a napping. However, from now on that activities should be prioritized. A recent study states that a person who can nap to revive their brain is able to learn more. Your body will be fresher.
Researchers who are also assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, United States, Matthew Walker, PhD said, the results of this study showed participants who did nap brain perform better in the afternoon. This discovery he presented last week at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, United States.
“The brain’s ability to learn a new information was not stable throughout the day. Part of the brain that stores memory can be blocked in one day, like a full e-mail inbox in your computer, “he said as quoted by WebMD.
The researchers found that napping for an hour is enough to increase the brain’s ability to learn new facts in the next hours. On the other hand, the longer we stay for literacy, the more sluggish minds.
These new findings support previous data from the same research team that stayed up all night can reduce the ability to incorporate new things almost as much as 40 percent. This is due to the closure of parts of the brain during sleep we lose time.
When the brain’s ability to absorb the lessons continue to deteriorate in the middle of the day, the light of Walker, with a nap activities known to remove the old brain memory is not very important in order to make room for new information. “Sleep is not just for the body. It is also useful for the brain, “he said.
Some of the most influential figures in the world also known as “day sleepers”. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once claimed that he only slept four hours each night, but always take a nap during the day. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton was also always taking the time to sleep for half an hour after lunch.
In this study, Walker and his colleagues asked 39 young participants, an average of 21 years. They were given a test that aims to find out how much memory in the hippocampus of absorption of the human brain where the memory stores the information-they. Tests carried out by matching a person and his image. This activity is carried out in the afternoon, after naps.
The researchers divided the participants into two groups namely the nap group and does not nap group. At two o’clock in the afternoon, the first group were given the opportunity to take a nap for 90 minutes. While the rest is left intact.
Then, at six o’clock, the test starts. The result, people who fall into the group did not nap decreased about 10 percent on their learning abilities during the day. While the group that slept in the daytime, even increased to 10 percent.
The study also found that total sleep time during the day either for 90 minutes or more is not too affected human brain performance. Interestingly, the phase of non-dreaming sleep were able to increase the memory to be better.
From the results of this study can be concluded that prior to learn, you should sleep first. Just as some studies say that sleep after learning is also important to strengthen the absorption of information that has been learned.
In a previous study, Walker and other colleagues have discovered the fact that all of our memory that the information can be stored in the hippocampus are then sent to a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, an area suspected to have larger storage.
“Maybe this happened during the hippocampus is actually a transit station for the memory in the brain,” Walker said. Hippocampus could absorb all the information in large numbers, but a time due to excess weight, “he” also need to transfer the information to the prefrontal cortex.
Someone who sleep before learning, the light of Walker, can help clean the hippocampus from a number of memory and sends the data to the prefrontal cortex, allowing him to receive the new information.
“The new and interesting, this study shows that sleep, in addition to helping the process of memory consolidation, also helps the brain to learn new information,” said Jessica Payne, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, which also examine this issue.
According to him, a memory has three stages. First, accept the initial memory, after you learn something new. Second, memory storage or consolidation. And last, the memory retrieval.
Payne says, most research is focused on sleep over the consolidation process, although the new study looks at how sleep affects memory revenues in the early stages. The findings of this new study, he added, may be the perfect answer for older people who has a short memory. Short nap can help them learn and remember things in the future.
Both Walker and Payne admitted that 90 minutes of sleep during the day may be considered inappropriate for many people. “But maybe at some point a short nap in the middle of the day will become a habit that ultimately profitable,” said Payne.
Tagged with: brain memory, day sleepers, nap activities, old brain, Part Of The Brain,
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