Health Tips: Getting your nap on
NAP is not just for toddlers. Napping makes great sense for adults, whether or not it puts you in touch with your inner child. When adults napped between 2 and 4 p.m. , one recent study showed, they performed better on tests and had no problems falling asleep at night. NASA found that military pilots and astronauts who took a 40-minute nap improved alertness by 100 percent and performance by 34 percent, and recent Harvard University research also revealed that college students who napped between tasks performed better than those who stayed awake. How does napping work its brain magic? "It may protect brain circuits from overuse until those neurons can consolidate what's been learned about a procedure," says Robert Stickgold, Ph.D., coauthor of the Harvard study. Unless you know the correct way to conduct a daytime doze, however, you could snooze and lose. "Napping can steal the drive for nighttime sleep, so you need to be cautious," says David Neubauer, M.D., a