Naps Boost Learning Of New Tasks

A brief daytime nap can help people learning new things, according to a new study.

Matthew Tucker of the Harvard Medical School worked with 33 people in their early 20s. They were trained on memory tasks at 12:15 p.m. and 1 p.m. Sixteen then took a nap, while the rest stayed awake.

At 4 p.m. they were all tested again.

For those who figured out the work during training, there was improved performance if they also napped, according to a news release.

"The importance of this finding is that sleep may not indiscriminately process all information we acquire during wakefulness, only the information we learn well," Tucker said.

The study appears in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.