Deeper Sleep Stages Boost Problem-Solving Insights, Study Finds
(Friday June 27, 2025 @11:20AM (msmash)
from the sleep-on-it dept.)
- Reference: 0178200850
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/27/0724231/deeper-sleep-stages-boost-problem-solving-insights-study-finds
- Source link:
A new study challenges previous research about which sleep stages help people achieve breakthrough moments in problem-solving. Researchers found that N2 sleep, a deeper stage of non-REM sleep, significantly increased participants' likelihood of experiencing sudden insights during a perceptual task. The [1]preregistered study involved 90 participants who performed a visual pattern recognition task before and after a 20-minute daytime nap while researchers monitored their brain activity with EEG.
Participants who reached N2 sleep showed an 85.7% rate of achieving insights about a hidden strategy in the task, compared to 63.6% for those who only reached N1 sleep (the first stage of non-rapid eye movement sleep) and 55.5% for participants who remained awake. The findings contradict earlier work by Lacaux and colleagues, which suggested that lighter N1 sleep promoted insight while deeper sleep hindered it.
News coverage : [2]Stuck on a problem? Take a nap!
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.3003185
[2] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/1254874800/sleep-brain-rest-nap
Participants who reached N2 sleep showed an 85.7% rate of achieving insights about a hidden strategy in the task, compared to 63.6% for those who only reached N1 sleep (the first stage of non-rapid eye movement sleep) and 55.5% for participants who remained awake. The findings contradict earlier work by Lacaux and colleagues, which suggested that lighter N1 sleep promoted insight while deeper sleep hindered it.
News coverage : [2]Stuck on a problem? Take a nap!
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.3003185
[2] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/1254874800/sleep-brain-rest-nap
Many Times (Score:2)
When faced with a difficult, complex problem, I wake up in the middle of the night with the answer in an 'aha' solution. It's very satisfying.