Midday Naps Help Preschoolers Learn Better

Midday naps don't just help children relax but also improve learning, a new study has found.

There are very few studies backing the benefits of siestas, which is why schools have started eliminating naps to increase time allotted for learning. An earlier study had shown that daytime napping is negatively associated with cognitive function in young children.

The new study shows that a snooze-break in the middle of a long, activity-filled day helps the brain learn efficiently.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was based on data from 40 children from six preschools across western Massachusetts. The experts found that children who took small naps were better at recalling information than other children.

"Essentially we are the first to report evidence that naps are important for preschool children," Rebecca Spencer from University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in a news release. "Our study shows that naps help the kids better remember what they are learning in preschool."

For the study, the scientists taught a kind of visual spatial game, similar to the "Memory" game. The children were shown a grid of pictures and had to remember the location of each picture. All children did the task twice; the first time they got to sleep for about 77 minutes. However they were kept awake during the second time.

Memory for the task was again tested before and after naps on the following day to see whether sleep affects memory.

Researchers found that when children took naps, they were able to recall the task with 75 percent accuracy compared to 65 percent accuracy when they were kept awake.

"While the children performed about the same immediately after learning in both the nap and wake conditions, the children performed significantly better when they napped both in the afternoon and the next day. That means that when they miss a nap, the child cannot recover this benefit of sleep with their overnight sleep. It seems that there is an additional benefit of having the sleep occur in close proximity to the learning," the authors said.

In the second part of the study, they recruited 14 children to take naps in controlled laboratory conditions. Brain scans showed that when children napped, activity in certain regions of the brain increased.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.