{"id":82389,"date":"2015-01-14T15:23:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T15:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=82389"},"modified":"2015-01-14T15:23:47","modified_gmt":"2015-01-14T15:23:47","slug":"regular-naps-key-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=82389","title":{"rendered":"Regular naps are ‘key to learning’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The key to learning and memory in early life is a lengthy nap, say scientists.<\/p>\n

Trials with 216 babies up to 12 months old indicated they were unable to remember new tasks if they did not have a lengthy sleep soon afterwards.<\/p>\n

The University of Sheffield team suggested the best time to learn may be just before sleep and emphasised the importance of reading at bedtime.<\/p>\n

Experts said sleep may be much more important in early years than at other ages.<\/p>\n

People spend more of their time asleep as babies than at any other point in their lives.<\/p>\n

Yet the researchers, in Sheffield and Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, say “strikingly little is known” about the role of sleep in the first year of life.<\/p>\n

Learn, sleep, repeat<\/span><\/p>\n

They taught six- to 12-month-olds three new tasks involving playing with hand puppets.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dr Jane Herbert performing the study<\/div>\n

Half the babies slept within four hours of learning, while the rest either had no sleep or napped for fewer than 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

The next day, the babies were encouraged to repeat what they had been taught.<\/p>\n

The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed “sleeping like a baby” was vital for learning.<\/p>\n

On average one-and-a-half tasks could be repeated after having a substantial nap.<\/p>\n

Yet zero tasks could be repeated if there was little sleep time.<\/p>\n

Dr Jane Herbert, from the department of psychology at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC News website: “Those who sleep after learning learn well, those not sleeping don’t learn at all.”<\/p>\n

She said it had been assumed that “wide-awake was best” for learning, but instead it “may be the events just before sleep that are most important”.<\/p>\n

And that the findings showed “just how valuable” reading books with children before sleep could be.<\/p>\n

Dr Herbert added: “Parents get loads of advice, some saying fixed sleep, some flexible, these findings suggest some flexibility would be useful, but they don’t say what parents should do.”<\/p>\n

Sweet dreams<\/span><\/p>\n

A study last year uncovered the mechanisms of memory in sleep. It showed how new connections between brain cells formed during sleep.<\/p>\n

Prof Derk-Jan Dijk, a sleep scientists at the University of Surrey, said: “It may be that sleep is much more important at some ages than others, but that remains to be firmly established.”<\/p>\n

He said babies “should definitely get enough sleep” to encourage learning, but concentrating learning just before bedtime may not be best.<\/p>\n

“What the data show is sleeping after training is positive, it does not show that being sleepy during training is positive.”<\/p>\n

\"Old<\/div>\n

There is also growing interest in sleep and memory at the other end of life.<\/p>\n

The two go hand in hand in your twilight years, particularly with underlying neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.<\/p>\n

It is hoped that boosting sleep would “slow the rot” of memory function.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The key to learning and memory in early life is a lengthy nap, say scientists. Trials with 216 babies up to 12 months old indicated they were unable to remember new tasks if they did not have a lengthy sleep soon afterwards. The University of Sheffield team suggested the best time to learn may be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":82398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-82389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}