Need A 'Eureka' Moment? Take A Good Nap, Study Says

Key TakeawaysA short nap might increase a person’s odds of having a 'eureka' momentPeople who reached a deeper level of sleep during a 20-minute nap were more likely to experience a sudden insightEEG readings related to deeper sleep were also related to 'eureka' moments.MONDAY, June 30, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Do you enjoy “eureka” moments, when sudden insight or inspiration strikes seemingly from nowhere?Then you definitely need to sleep on it, a new study says.People are more likely to have sudden “eureka” moments on nagging problems if they can reach a deeper phase of sleep during a nap, researchers reported June 26 in the journal PLOS Biology.Folks who reached this deeper sleep during a 20-minute nap were more likely to figure out a trick to make a problem-solving task easier to complete, researchers found.“It’s really intriguing that a short period of sleep can help humans make connections they didn’t see before,” senior researcher Nicolas Schuck, a professor of psychology at the University of Hamburg in Germany, said in a news release. “The next big question is why this happens.”For the study, researchers asked 90 participants to track a series of dots across a screen. The subjects were given basic instructions on performing the task, but researchers left out a trick that would make it easier.After performing the task four times, participants then took a 20-minute nap while an EEG tracked their sleep.After their nap, about 71% of participants had a “eureka” moment, figuring out the trick that would make the task easier.Nearly 86% of those who entered deeper stage 2 sleep during their nap experienced this moment, compared with 56% of those who stayed awake and 64% who dropped into light stage 1 sleep, results show.EEG patterns also showed that a steeper spectral slope — a measurement linked to deeper sleep — was also associated with sudden inspiration.“The EEG spectral slope has only recently been considered as a factor in cognitive processes during sleep,” said lead researcher Anika Löwe, who was a doctoral candidate at the University of Hamburg during the study.“I think a lot of us have made the subjective experience of having important realizations after a short nap,” she added in a news release. “It’s really nice to not only have data on that, but also a first direction of what processes are behind this phenomenon.”Interestingly, the study did not provide subjects the opportunity to go into the deeper realms of stage 3 (deep) sleep or stage 4 (REM dreaming) sleep.Future studies should look more closely into how EEG activity during awake “eureka” moments relates to EEG readings during sleep, researchers said.How the brain’s networks function during a steeper EEG spectral slope is another good avenue of research, they added. More informationThe Sleep Foundation has more on the stages of sleep.SOURCE: PLOS, news release, June 26, 2025 .What This Means For YouPeople seeking inspiration might consider taking a short nap..Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Need A 'Eureka' Moment? Take A Good Nap, Study Says

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