Sleep On It

Several nights of my college life were spent bent over my desk trying to figure out accounting or math problems. Text books and homework problems are designed to have the easier problems in the beginning, and the truly thought provoking ones toward the end of the assignment. Because of that, I would breeze through the first few problems in my awake hours and struggle with the tough ones once my eyes and mind were exhausted. By my sophomore year, I knew when I had reached by peak (point of no return for the evening.) At that point I knew it was more beneficial for me to go to sleep.

I'd go to sleep, but my mind wouldn't stop thinking of the problem that I hadn't solved. I was notorious for dreaming of accounting. On other nights, if I woke up and looked at my alarm clock in the wee hours of the night, I'd do accounting for TIME in my sleep. Twisted, huh. Anyway, after all of that thinking, I'd wake up the next morning and go straight back to my problem and solve it immediately. It would be as if my hand couldn't keep up with the solution in my mind.

Today I saw an article on Yahoo that shared findings that proved I'm not alone in my sleep-solving. The article says of a study, "Participants attempted to navigate through a virtual, 3-D maze. Half of them then took a 90-minute nap. Those who dreamed about the maze were 10 times better at negotiating the task than other nappers or subjects who didn't sleep at all."

Does this mean I can ask my boss for a 90 minute nap when I'm stomped on an issue?