Sara C. Mednick is a sleep researcher at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. Her research focuses on the relationship between

nap A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to Somnolence, drowsiness during waking hours or as a means to supplement before ...

ping and performance. She is the author of several papers and a mass market book, ''Take a Nap! Change Your Life.'' She graduated with her PhD in psychology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

studying under

Ken Nakayama Ken Nakayama is an American psychologist. Prior to retirement he was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is now an emeritus professor at Harvard. Nakayama is known for his work on prosopagnosia (an inability to reco ...

and Robert Stickgold. Mednick contends that humans have a biological need for an afternoon nap. "There's actually biological dips in our rhythm and in our alertness that seem to go along with the natural state of the way we used to be, probably from way back when we were allowed to nap more regularly," she told

Diane Sawyer Lila Diane Sawyer (; born December 22, 1945) is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including ''ABC World News Tonight'', ''Good Morning America'', ''20/20 (U.S. TV series), 20/20'', and ...

on ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'', often abbreviated as ''GMA'', is an American breakfast television, morning television program that is broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends wit ...

.'' "There is something very specific about the timing of the nap," she is quoted as saying in ''The Times'' (London). "It should be at about 2pm or 3pm. It's the time when most humans and animals experience what is called a post-prandial dip or low ebb. It's a dip in cogno-processing and physiological responses, when a lot of us actually do feel sleepy." Coffee is an inferior substitute, Mednick believes. "In all of my research, what I found is that when I have people not drink caffeine but take a nap instead, they actually perform much better on a wide range of memory tasks," she told

Neal Conan Neal Joseph Conan III (November 26, 1949August 10, 2021) was an American radio journalist, producer, editor, and correspondent. He worked for National Public Radio for more than 36 years and was the senior host of its talk show '' Talk of the Na ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

's ''Talk of the Nation.'' A video of her short Science Network lecture on nap research, at the

Salk Institute The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among th ...

in February 2007, can be viewed online. Journalist

Gregg Easterbrook Gregg Edmund Easterbrook (born March 3, 1953) is an American writer and a contributing editor of both ''The New Republic'' and ''The Atlantic Monthly''. He has authored ten books (six nonfiction, one of humor, and three literary novels), and wr ...

named Dr. Mednick "2008 Tuesday Morning Quarterback Person of the Year", (although this doesn't appear to be an official award of any kind), citing her work to improve people's lives through napping:

References

External links

* ''Take a Nap! Change Your Life'' (Workman, 2006) .
Siesta Time
Article in ''The Economist'' about the restorative power of mid-day naps on visual performance tests.
Take a Nap
Dr. Mednick's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Mednick, Sara Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American neuroscientists American women neuroscientists Sleep researchers University of California, Riverside faculty Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American psychologists 21st-century American women scientists