If ever there is a chance, I take a nap. Five minutes, maybe ten. Without it, I would be giddy, grumpy, or both.
Spencer, a neuro-scientist focusing on sleep at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, wanted to investigate the science behind this anecdotal experience. “The observation of a lot of people is that a napless kid is emotionally dysregulated,” she says. “So that spurred us to ask this question of, ‘Do naps actually do something to process emotions?’”
Research has already shown that, in general, sleep helps us make sense of emotions. Sleep plays a key role in encoding information based on experiences from the day, making sleep critical for preserving memories. And emotional memories are unique because of the way they activate the amygdala, the brain’s emotional core.
“Amygdala activation is what allows your wedding day and the funeral of your parents to be a day better remembered, more than just any other day of work,” Spencer says.
The amygdala tags these memories as significant, so that during sleep they’re processed for longer and reiterated more than more trivial memories. The upshot is that the memories of emotional significance become easier to retrieve in the future.
As we could learn from a BBC-report researchers are learning that even a nap can improve how we process emotional experiences. At sleep labs like this one, researchers are learning that even a nap can improve how we process emotional experiences.
Ultimately, the best prescription for a broken heart or a clouded mind may be having a kip. Five minutes "nalang" ...
