Take More Naps!

"Not only do we need to remember to sleep, but most certainly we sleep to remember," is the newly researched line we need to keep in consideration says neuroscientist from City University of New York, Dr. William Fishbein. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27893642/
The studies have shown that not only does the amount of sleep a person gets each night affect health, but so does the quality. Getting woken up throughout the night supposedly negatively affects our memory. In detail, the sleep before REM sleep (or even a power nap) gets our brains working more efficiently and creatively.

In one experiment, a group of English speaking college students were shown a list of Chinese words, then half the group took a power nap (they were being monitored to make sure they didn't fall into REM sleep) and the other half stayed awake. When the napping half were woken up, both groups were put to a memory test based on the Chinese words they had previously learned. Come to find out, the half that took the nap seemed to have a much better memory as opposed to going without any brief sleeping period.

As stated before, not only does napping improve memory, but disturbing sleep decreases memory. Another study to prove this was a test on rats performed by Dr. Dennis McGinty of the University of California, Los Angeles. McGinity hooked a group of rats up on brain monitors for 2 weeks and had them all sleep as they normally would. However, using these monitors, he had made it so half of the rats were frequently disturbed and woken up. After the trial period was over, he let all the rats sleep as much as they wanted for the next 2 weeks. The results proved the following resting period after the disturbances didn't help. McGinity put both groups to the test; he set up an escape hole in each of their cages, the group who had slept normally and peacefully throughout each night found the route by using certain cues, whereas the rats that had been disturbed, couldn't find the hole and couldn't seem to use obvious cues that lead the way to the hole.

Personally, I never ever take naps, I've always felt like I couldn't or shouldn't fall asleep during the day and have more important things to do. I was proved wrong, now I'm going to try to find time to wind down and fall asleep in the middle of the day. I can't make excuses either because it was also proved that napping for even 12 minutes has the same positive affect! so take a nap :)