{"id":3350,"date":"2018-05-09T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=3350"},"modified":"2018-06-10T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2018-06-10T20:25:45","slug":"nap-research-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/nap-research-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Solving the Nap Research Problem (BTW: Naps Help!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do naps improve learning?\"nap<\/a><\/p>\n

If you teach teenagers, you almost certainly want to know the answer to that question. Whenever I talk with adolescents about brains, it’s one of the first questions I get.<\/p>\n

Alas: an important muddle makes that question noticeably hard to answer.<\/p>\n

The Nap Research Problem Explained<\/h2>\n

On the one hand, we’ve got plenty of research showing that naps boost learning.<\/p>\n

If I give you a list of words to study, you’ll remember more of them after a nap than you would if you hadn’t taken that nap.<\/p>\n

In one study, for example, Olaf Lahl found that<\/a><\/p>\n

“An ultra short period of only 6 min of napping is already sufficient to significantly boost declarative memory performance beyond waking control levels.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You read that right. Even a SIX MINUTE nap helped participants recall more words.<\/p>\n

But wait: there’s a problem.<\/p>\n

We know that good night-time sleep is essential for consolidation of long-term memories. (Here’s a great article on the subject<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

It seems plausible to me that an afternoon nap might feel good at the time, but might make it harder to sleep at night.<\/p>\n

If that’s true, then the short-term benefit of the nap will be more than offset by the long-term detriment of a bad night’s sleep.<\/p>\n

In other words: I might remember that list of words better after the nap, but I might be likelier to forget everything else.<\/p>\n

This uncertainty has always held me back from recommending naps.<\/p>\n

The Nap Research Problem, Solved<\/h2>\n

Researches in Jintan, China looked at the cognitive results of napping<\/a> — and their method fixes this research problem.<\/p>\n

They gathered nap and night-time sleep data from 363 6th graders. And, they tested them on a variety of cognitive functions: executive control, spatial memory, and complex cognition among them.<\/p>\n

What did they find?<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>: frequent nappers get better nighttime sleep<\/em> than infrequent nappers.<\/p>\n

Yup: naps didn’t make it harder for these 6th graders to sleep. In fact, they slept better.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>: frequent nappers did better on a variety of the cognitive tests. For instance, they did better on tests of sustained attention. (In schools, we require A LOT of sustained attention).<\/p>\n

They also did better on tests of non-verbal reasoning.<\/p>\n

In brief<\/strong>: frequent naps don’t<\/em> make it harder to sleep at night, and they do<\/em> improve some cognitive functions. Win win!<\/p>\n

Nap Research in Context<\/h2>\n

This study’s authors wisely note two key limitations.<\/p>\n

First, the data on sleep come from self-reports. This method, alas, allows for participants’ faulty memory to skew the results.<\/p>\n

Second, the study took place within a particular cultural context<\/strong>. Naps are a cultural norm in China. That norm just might have an influence on the relationship between napping and cognition.<\/p>\n

We just don’t know.<\/p>\n

(To think more about the important of context, consider the perils of WEIRD neuroscience<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For me, this study’s specific findings<\/em> about cognitive capabilities are interesting. However, its general finding<\/em> that naps don’t interfere with nighttime sleep means that the other studies about naps’ benefits can be taken at face value.<\/p>\n

So: you’d like to take a 6 minute nap? GO FOR IT!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research from China shows that daytime naps improve several cognitive functions — like sustained attention. Just as important, those naps don’t make it harder to sleep at night. In fact: frequent nappers sleep better than non-nappers. So, grab a pillow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11,10],"class_list":["post-3350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-high-school","tag-sleep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3350"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3360,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions\/3360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}