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People Who Nap At Work Have Bigger Brains & Are More Productive, New Study Reveals
Research Shows People Who Nap At Work Have Bigger Brains & Are More Productive
A recent study finds a link between people who take regular afternoon naps and larger brain volumes.
That’s right: People who regularly nap have bigger brains. The researchers, writing in the journal Sleep Health, looked at data from over 35,000 participants in the British Biobank survey.
Our brains tend to shrink as we age, but the brains of habitual nappers were large enough to offset up to 6.5 years of aging. That news would come as no surprise to power nappers like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who reportedly took cat naps in the back of her limousine.
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The evidence for naps goes back many years: A meta-analysis of 54 research reports from 2002 to 2020 found that “[a]fternoon naps have a small to medium benefit over multiple cognitive tests.”
Those cognitive tests included memory, attention span, problem-solving, planning, self-awareness and emotional regulation (the ability to not scream insults at your coworkers — always a good skill to master).
And if your office is a ball field, the benefits of a quick snooze are even more significant, according to researchers from Spain, where the siesta was invented. Among athletes, a daytime nap between 30 and 60 minutes “has a moderate-to-high effect on the improvement of cognitive performance and physical performance,” the study authors wrote in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
But like many endeavors, there’s a right way and a wrong way to nap, experts report: A too-long nap often leaves people groggy.
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