Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Napping. Good for the soul?

Naps enhanced recall of words after a 7 h and 20 min retention interval relative to both caffeine and placebo. Caffeine significantly impaired motor learning compared to placebo and naps. Napping produced robust perceptual learning compared with placebo; however, naps and caffeine were not significantly different. These findings provide evidence of the limited benefits of caffeine for memory improvement compared with napping.
(From Science Direct)

So naps are better for us than caffeine. I'm not that surprised. We are constantly struggling to come up with new and improved ways to live faster, with more and more packed into every hour. What if we simply stopped for a little while? This study shows that naps have more benefits than we could imagine. That's great if we could all stop and nap at work, but for those of us who don't have a cot and a pillow in our offices, perhaps we could realize that there is benefit in stopping, for whatever length of time, taking a deep breath and handing control over to God. If we could collect ourselves and allow ourselves to be led, perhaps we would find energies we didn't know we have, for in allowing God to lead we find our purpose, to glorify God, rather than trying to desperately rush to get things done to move onto the next task. Peace in God is preferable to frenzy for the sake of busy-ness.

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