A good night’s sleep can be hard to find for busy students, but a new study shows that a daytime nap can boost learning and memorization power in young adults. The idea certainly makes sense to meeven a short snooze has the power to leave me feeling exponentially more lucid than I was 20 minutes before.
Unfortunately, nap time during the school day pretty much disappeared after kindergarten. Even in college, when my dorm was just a short walk away, it was hard to find a time when work or class was not demanding my attention.
The new research, presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, shows that young adults who took a 90-minute nap after eating lunch were able to boost their learning power, according to a Monday New York Times report.
Today, the New York Times posed the question, “do you get enough sleep?” to students on their education blog, The Learning Network. Most students replied that they were carrying some serious sleep debt, but highly doubt that schools would be amenable to giving students a free period to sleep. “If we told our school they probably would laugh at us,” one post commented.
Another student on the blog suggested that simply getting more sleep at night would be a huge help; “I admit that getting more sleep in my regular schedule has me waking up refreshed and ready to learn. I also absorb information easier and have greater memory recollection ability after a good night’s rest.”
While we might not see cots being installed in the classroom any time soon, perhaps it’s time to get serious about encouraging kids to get a good night’s rest. With the First Lady’s new anti-obesity initiative putting such an emphasis on healthy lifestyles for students, maybe she should add good sleep habits to the list along with diet and exercise. Studies by the National Sleep Foundation say that inadequate sleep is linked to diabetes and obesity, since it can slow down your metabolism.
Staying active is certainly key to battling childhood obesity, but maybe kids shouldn’t be so quick to get off the couchthey should stay just long enough for a quick nap.
Tricia Smith, Spring intern
