The Science Behind What Naps Do For Your Brain—And Why You Should Have One Today
At Heart & Hands, we are hardcore nap enthusiasts and any reason to encourage more napping, the better. Take for instance, this interesting article from
Fast Company (click for full article):
Studies of napping have shown improvement in cognitive function, creative thinking, and memory performance. Ready, set . . . snooze.
How sleep affects us
Better sleeping is known to provide lots of health benefits. These can include better heart function, hormonal maintenance and cell repair as well as boosting memory and improving cognitive function. Basically, sleeping gives your body a chance to deal with everything that happened during the day, repair itself, and reset for tomorrow.
Sleep deprivation, therefore, actually harms us in several ways. One of the most obvious harms is that we have trouble focusing when we’re sleep deprived. Buffer cofounder Leo Widrich wrote about this before:
Someone who is severely sleep deprived is in fact as attentive and awake as you are. With one big difference to you. Here is what a recent study found: The sleep deprived person can in fact deliver the exact same results as someone who isn’t sleep deprived in any exercise. That is, given it is a non-repeated exercise and they give it their best shot. Odd right? Now onto this though:
The problem lies elsewhere. Whether we are sleep deprived or not, we lose focus at times. And that is precisely where the sleep deprived person lands in a trap. Once we start to lose focus and have received the right amount of sleep, our brain can compensate for that and increase attention. If we are sleep deprived, our brain can’t refocus.
