Afternoon nap boosts mental performance in the elderly

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Older people who nap in the afternoon did better on mental tests than those who did not.
It's well known that as you get older, the quality of sleep suffers. A team at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York investigated the impact of boosting sleep quota with an afternoon nap.

A group of 32 men and women took either a nap or stayed awake between 2pm and 4pm each day for three days. After napping, the volunteers did better in mental performance tests both on the day of the nap and the day after. There is a biological tendency to fall asleep during the day, say the researchers. Capitalizing on this by napping seems to help the brain and make up for sleep lost during the night. If you do take a nap, it should not affect your night time sleep, according to this study. Ideally the nap would last between 30 and 120 minutes and not go beyond, say, 5pm in the evening.

Source
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society January 2005