Boost Creativity with a Power Nap

If you see a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle or a student dozing in the library, don't roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour's nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter. Conversely, the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become. In a recent sleep study, participants who napped performed noticeably better and actually improved their capacity to learn. Researchers suggest that napping digests and clears information in the brain's hippocampus, where fact-based memories are temporarily stored. It's like clearing your inbox, describes lead investigator Matthew Walker, "It's as though the email inbox in your hippocampus is full, and until you sleep and clear out those fact emails, you're not going to receive any more mail."

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