Naps Nurture Growing Brains

sciencehabit writes "Few features of child-rearing occupy as much parental brain space as sleep, and with it the timeless question: Is my child getting enough? Despite the craving among many parents for more sleep in their offspring (and, by extension, themselves), the purpose that sleep serves in young kids remains something of a mystery—especially when it comes to daytime naps. Do they help children retain information, as overnight sleep has been found to do in adults? A new study provides the first evidence that daytime sleep is in fact critical for effective learning in young children."

They're good for all

[djupedal]

Among the many things I learned from the locals while working in Japan was the ability to power nap. Benefits are both physical and mental, but the underlying brain 'tech' is how short term memory is allowed to percolate over to long term. Anyone at any age can apply such a technique.

Re:Yeh good luck with that

[dgatwood]

I was the only person in my kindergarten class who couldn't sleep during the day. (I still can't sleep during the day unless I'm severely jet lagged.) I just sort of sat there and thought about stuff for that half hour or however long it was. I'm pretty sure my learning was not in any way compromised by this.

That conclusion is actually supported by the article, which says that kids who are used to taking naps don't learn as well if they don't take naps, but that kids who never take naps don't improve after taking one. So if all parties aren't willing, chances are, your kid is beyond the age where a nap is useful, pedagogically speaking.

In other words, it is important to make naps available to kids who need them, but it is not useful to force naps on kids whose brains matured earlier. In an ideal world, there should be something for those kids to do other than lying there and feeling bored—perhaps a trip to the school library to read something, at least for those kids whose reading skills are far enough along to do so. My guess is that there's probably a roughly 1:1 correlation between those two groups.

Re:Napping Will Rot Your Brain

[ShadowRangerRIT]

The article you link reverses the cause and effect you claim; the assumption is that excessive napping is an early indicator of dementia, not the cause of it. And the research itself appears to take no stand on the matter; it established a correlation with no actual evidence for which way (if any) the causation arrow goes.