July 06, 2006
Power nap as good as a night of sleep?
If you happen to miss out on a night's sleep, you may be able to get by on a power nap for a day. According to BBC news, tests showed that over 24 hours, those who took a power nap had similar results to someone who had 2 nights of sleep. At least when your schedule is busy, you know a power nap partially make up for lost sleep.
Remarkably, over 24 hours, the performance of those who took a good-quality "power-nap" was as good as volunteers in previous studies who were tested after two full nights' sleep.The researchers wrote: "From the perspective of behavioural improvement, a nap is as good as a night of sleep for learning on this perceptual task."Dr Derk-jan Dijk, from the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey, said that there was increasing evidence that a combination of "short wave sleep" and REM sleep was important for learning and memory.However, he added: "We should not conclude that we can do with just a nap."Sleep is useful for more things than just these particular tests."Other research has suggested that people given six hours of sleep a night over a sustained period find it extremely detrimental."
