Snoozing during the day makes you smarter
While many people will ridicule the idea of taking 40 winks at lunchtime, some of the most influential people on the planet were keen cat nappers
London: It may not make you popular with your boss but a snooze in the middle of the day dramatically boosts your brain power.
Medical researchers have shown that the power naps favoured by Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and Margaret Thatcher not only refresh the mind, they also make people smarter.
They found snoozing for just one hour in the day is enough to increase the brain's ability to learn new facts in the hours that follow.
Dr Matthew Walker, a psychologist at the University of California, who led the study, said: "Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neuro- cognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap."
While many people will ridicule the idea of taking 40 winks at lunchtime, some of the most influential people on the planet were keen cat nappers.
Famous dozers
Famous daytime dozers also include John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Florence Nightingale.
In the Californian study, the researchers split 39 healthy students into two groups and asked them to carry out a learning task linking faces with names intended to tax the hippocampus, the region of the brain that helps store facts.
At 2pm, half the group took a 90-minute siesta, while the rest stayed awake. At 6pm, the students were asked to carry out a new round of learning exercises.
Those who had a siesta performed much better than those who remained awake throughout the day.
