We’ve known for a long time that a short afternoon nap can make a major difference to our work performance, especially if we’re involved in mental work.

Now, a new book by Harvard University sleep expert Dr Sara Mednick, Take a Nap! Change Your Life, describes the simple process of taking a nap as a “lifesaving habit”. She claims that snoozers make fewer mistakes and have boosted brainpower. One of her experiments involved one group taking a nap, another group drinking a mug of coffee (200mg of caffeine), and a control group taking a placebo.

They were then given a series of tasks, including typing and spatial skill tests. The coffee drinkers performed much worse than the placebo takers, while the nappers performed best of all. So the common assumption that coffee will keep us going through the day has probably been fed to us by the coffee industry.

Dr Mednick, a psychologist and research scientist, has accumulated a lot of evidence that a simple siesta in the afternoon is the best medicine for a happier, healthier life. People who sleep for 30 minutes at least three times a week had a 37 percent lower chance of a heart attack, according to a lead researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health.

In another study, recently published in Nature Neuroscience journal, the good doctor put 30 well-rested people through the same set of tasks four times in the course of a day, starting at 9am through to 7pm.

Performance dropped by 50 percent in those who stayed awake all day. However, the volunteers who took an afternoon nap kept up their performance throughout the day.

NASA has also made a contribution. Tests conducted by them show that astronauts who took a brief snooze doubled their alertness even if they were not tired before the nap. They also increased their work productivity by at least 13 percent.

The ideal time to nap apparently is between 1pm and 3pm which enables the most restful kind of sleep pattern for boosting performance.

I suggest you hedge your bets and take a nap now.

Sleep deprivation can cause a multitude of health problems. Additionally it can make reflexes and reaction times slower, leading to more accidents. It affects our ability to do our work and causes us to make more mistakes. Sleep deprivation has long been used as an interrogation tactic because it lowers the resistance of the one being interrogated.

Now, the results of a study, conducted by William D.S. Killgore, PhD, and colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and published in the March 1. 2007 issue of the journal SLEEP, suggest that sleep deprivation leads to difficulty in making decisions and judgments in personal moral dilemmas.

26 healthy subjects (21 men and 5 women) were tested after 53 waking hours. Sleep deprivation resulted in longer response latencies which could indicate greater difficulty in deciding upon a course of action. This finding was only true for personal moral dilemmas and not impersonal moral dilemmas or non-moral dilemmas. Following a period of sleep deprivation, there was a greater willingness to agree with solutions that violate personally held moral beliefs. This willingness, however, was moderated by emotional intelligence. Persons high in emotional intelligence were less susceptible to changes in moral judgments as a function of sleep loss.

Sleep loss causes a decline of activity in the prefrontal cortex. This area has been shown to have a prominent role in the formation of moral judgments. It is thought that sleep deprivation affects the ability to integrate emotion and cognition to guide moral judgments.

The Effects of 53 Hours of Sleep Deprivation on Moral Judgment

Sleep not only refreshes the body and recharges the immune system but is believed to be crucial to memory consolidation. Sleep deprivation is stressful for the body and inhibits cognitive function.

Now there’s more evidence that getting enough sleep is good for you. Loss of sleep may prevent the creation of new cells in the brain according to a study at Princeton University.

When rats were deprived of sleep for 72 hours, they had increased amount of the stress hormone corticosterone and fewer new brain cells were produced in the hippocampus.

Once the rats’ sleep patterns were normalized again, the recovery of normal levels of nerve-cell production took two more weeks while the brain temporarily increased neuron formation.

Sleep deprivation inhibits adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus by elevating glucocorticoids

Few would dispute the importance of a good night’s sleep for the brain to function well and remain alert during the day. Power naps work well when conditions are right, according to sleep experts at Harvard University. And some people seem to get by on less sleep. Take Yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur, who sailed solo around the world, and power napped for very short periods. But what about those who have trouble sleeping at night, and who tend to nod off during the day? The normal brain requires about 8 hours of sleep nightly, to reboot, and regular interruptions could a serious trigger to bigger health problems, according to a new study.

If you tend to fall asleep during the day, you’ll be interested in new research that shows daytime sleepiness can put people at risk for cardiovascular problems. Check out the details in the December 1st issue of the journal, Sleep. Assessment of brain activity helps researchers to spot regions of the brain which differ between healthy and unhealthy sleepers. Research typically involves sleep studies, PET and MRI scans as well as follow-up care.

The 86 participants in this study averaged 47 year in age, and show daytime sleepiness decreased cardiac function. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reported the study’s conclusion that daytime sleepiness from Obstructive Sleep Apnea or OSA, can raise the risk for cardiovascular problems.

OSA follows when tissue at the back of a person’s throat collapses and blocks the airway. Because air is blocked from reaching the lungs, sleep is disturbed. The best cure reported at this point, is a steady stream of pressurized air breathed in through a mask worn during sleep. The flow of air holds the airway open and restores normal oxygen levels.

Not sure where you stand on the awake - asleep exchange? You’ll find many more answers to this problem at SleepEducation.com - which updates information often and lists sleep facilities you can contact. Sleep well!