The phrase “sleep on it” has long been coined when we have a tough decision to make with the premise that taking the time to sleep will improve your decision-making ability and remove any subconscious influences.
To support this, a new study completed have found that taking a period of sleep can improve your ability to consider the pros and cons of a decision leading to better decision making.
What Did The Study Involve?
The study was undertaken by the University of Bristol’s Medical School, led by Liz Coulthard, Ph.D., a senior lecturer who studies cognitive neuroscience, and research associate Netasha Shaikh, Ph.D., involved 16 healthy people who sat between the ages of 20 and 91.
50% of the intake completed the tasks with a 90-minute nap in between which equates to a full sleep cycle. While the remaining 50% stayed awake throughout the task
The initial task required the subjects to categorise a series of words as “bad” or good”, and the final task required the cohort to identify whether they saw either a red or blue square as it appeared on a screen.
Researchers used an electroencephalogram (EEG), which is a machine that can measure electrical activity within the brain, to record the change in brain activity response.
The results showed that the participants that had napped had superior reaction times compared to those who had not slept.
The average time that the 16 participants took to place the words into correct categories dropped by 9% from 670 milliseconds before napping to 610 milliseconds after taking a nap.
So, What Does This Mean?
It’s already very common that when we have a big decision to make, we spend longer to decide as we weigh up the pros and cons and this supports it.
One key thing to note with this study is that there were only 16 participants which was also acknowledged by the study author who noted;
“Further research on larger sample size is needed to compare if and how the findings differ between ages, and investigation of underlying neural mechanisms."
So additional studies will be needed with higher numbers of participants to understand if the results differ depending on the amount of time slept. However what this does show is that it supports the hypothesis that taking a nap can improve memory, learning and cognitive function in humans.
One clear thing is that this practice may be hard to implement in our day to day work life if you have a big decision to make with little time to decide, because it may be difficult to find the time to take a 90-minute nap in the middle of the day.
Moving Forward
This study highlights the benefits of napping which include increased alertness and energy which can be experienced with a nap of just 20 minutes.
By restricting it to 20 minutes, it also prevents you from falling into a deep sleep. A nap of just 20 minutes is also more comfortable to fit into your typical day to day life.