At Last, an Excuse for a Nap

Memories take hold better during sleep

The best way to not forget a newly learned poem, card trick or algebra equation may be to take a quick nap, scientists surprised by their own findings have reported.

In experiments, researchers in Germany showed that the brain is better during sleep than during wakefulness at resisting attempts to scramble or corrupt a recent memory.

Their study, published in Nature Neuroscience, provides new insights into the hugely complex process by which we store and retrieve deliberately acquired information - learning, in short. Earlier research showed that fresh memories, stored temporarily in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, do not gel immediately...

The study shows that subsequent exposure to new material diminishes the retention of the material previously learned, but a nap as short as 40 minutes allows the brain to fix the memory of the older material, making it permanent.

So, pulling an all nighter, and going to class without sleeping was not a good idea?  And maybe napping at work once in while would be?  The Mexicans got it right with the afternoon siesta.

The brain is spooky stuff.  For a few years, my dad had a neurological problem that caused Transient Global Amnesia, essentially failure to process short-term memories into long-term.  It would last part of a day, during which he was perfectly rational, but unable to remember anything that happened past a few minutes that day.  His long-term stored memories were fine.