Re-fresh Your Mind with a Nap

I haven’t had a good night sleep since my son was sick (he was hospitalized for a few days) and work isn’t slowing down; I have to put extra hours after work hour, giving me not enough time to rest or taking care of other things that I need to do. The effect is; I couldn’t concentrate well. I often miss some details of my work and have a headache.

Have Enough Sleep

I’ve tried medications to help me relieve my condition. It doesn’t help much, and since I do an office work, my day time schedule is already fixed. Dr. Neil Kline, a sleep physician, said that ideally, a person who had enough sleep at night wouldn’t feel sleepy during the day and according to Matthew P. Walker, head of Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory from University California, Berkeley, ”…a person who sleeps 8 hours at night wouldn’t need an extra nap. But, if you are sleepy, lie down for a while, just make sure you don’t disrupt your nighttime sleeping pattern”. Since I barely had 3 to 4 hours of quality sleep, I guess I needed more than just lie down.

The Research

From the research conducted by Walker, where he analyzed 39 college students to memorize a series of faces and names and match them a few minutes later. He found that the students who had taken a nap had better memory capabilities. He explains that some part or our brain that keeps short term information and memory is re-fresh during napping time, which helps our brain to receive more new information.

Walker also studied the dangerous effect on lack of sleep to our learning abilities, which is the ability to store new information. On his presentation on the annual meeting of American Association of the Advancement of Science’s in San Diego, he concluded that lack of sleep will decrease our ability to store information. The longer a person awakes the harder for brain to store new information such as names, conversation or other data. He based his findings on the fact that the students who sleep better had better brainwaves.

Do You Take a Nap?

So, to anyone who had the time for a short ‘siesta’, feel free to do so. I tried it several times, and it did help me go trough the day. Sometimes I think it’s better than drinking coffee, which only boost you for a short period of time and left you with a more tired body. But for those who work in office hour, like I do, it’s just a matter of finding a spare time and a hidden spot.