Afternoon Naps Can Benefit Mental Agility
There is no need to feel guilty for wanting that afternoon nap. It turns out they could actually be very beneficial to your productivity for the rest of the day. According to healthline.com, a new study done by Chinese researchers found that naps in the afternoon can make you mentally sharper if you’re 60 years-old or older.
After taking an afternoon nap, older participants in the study were able to score higher on cognitive tests than those who didn’t take a nap. The researches collected data from 2,214 participants all over the age of 60. Of those participants 1,534 regularly took naps while 680 did not. The napper scored significantly higher on “visuospatial skills, attention span, problem-solving, working memory, locational awareness, and verbal fluency.”
All of those areas of memory are sharpened because sleep affects our ability to learn. When we take a nap our brain recovers from all of the information that it was given during the day. It can then clear out all of the useless information and make room for more memories.
