Children are not the only people who need naps. Believe it or not there are major benefits to taking a nap. Simply put the body must have rest. Imagine yourself as an automobile. Even cars need to be put to rest after a certain amount of driving.
You go all day striving to achieve whatever deadlines that you may be trying to meet; and many of us never even stop, long enough, to get something to eat. We must remember that even our abilities to learn, and properly perform our jobs, weigh heavily on the fact that rest, at some point, must come in between. Our energy levels generally tend to decrease in the afternoon. Many of us, in an attempt to overcome this feeling of fatigue, in the afternoons, utilize our lunch breaks to take a quick nap.
Dr. Matthew Walker, PhD, a Researcher at The University of California states that; “The area of the brain which stores memory becomes clogged much like that of an unchecked email inbox.” Dr. Walker further stated that, “It is important that we rest in order to allow the brain’s memory to be cleaned out allowing for more room by which to store new information.” More findings of the study on the importance of taking a nap; conclude that those who took examinations after having a nap produced better test scores opposite of those who did not take a nap. “Participants of the group who didn’t nap had a decrease in their ability to learn by as much as 10 percent during the day,” Walker added. “On the other hand, those who had taken an afternoon nap showed an increase in their ability to learn by as much as 10 percent.”
In a previous study, Dr. Walker and other researchers had learned that the brains’ fact-based memory is stored temporarily in the hippocampus; an area of cerebral cortex that forms a ridge in the floor of the lateral ventricle of the brain. Information is then sent to the prefontal cortex, an area suspected of having a larger storage area.
“Sleep before learning may help to clear the hippocampus faster allowing new data to be transferred to the prefontal cortex immediately.” explained Walker.
Although our brains work much like an external hard-drive; however, we must keep in mind always that we are not machines. A machine may break down, due to wear and tear, age, and depending upon how we care for them, the turnaround time may be sooner; nevertheless we have the ability to obtain a replacement. Our brain, unlike a machine, is very fragile and cannot be replaced therefore; we must find a way to better manage our time in order to allow room for a nap in between it all. ~~~With Love Kalima Boom Beema
