Naps improves memory & mental function

Naps boost memory, but only if you dream. An afternoon power nap may boost ability to process and store information, study suggests. Nappers did better than the students who had stayed awake in a maze test. During dreams, the brain looks at connections that you might not think of or notice when awake.

"When you dream, your brain is trying to look at connections that you might not think of or notice when [you're] awake," says the lead author of the study, Robert Stickgold, the director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. "In the dream...the brain tries to figure out what's important and what it should keep or dump because it's of no value."