Sleeping on it really could help you make big decisions, scientists say.
Test subjects in a university study were allowed to take a 90-minute power nap before carrying out two tasks.
Academics say the snooze was enough to significantly improve brain power, compared with those people who stayed awake beforehand.
They hooked 16 people up to an EEG machine to measure the electrical pulses in their brain before and after sleep.
The researchers at Bristol University said their findings, which are published in the Journal of Sleep Research, were “remarkable”.
The participants, aged between 20 and 91, were asked to describe whether they thought a chain of words were either “good” or “bad”.
Another task saw them quizzed on whether a red or blue square appeared when flashed dozens of times on a screen.
The volunteers completed the tasks and then either slept or stayed awake before doing the exercises again.
Reaction times for the word task were much quicker in the subjects who had slept, suggesting that sleep helps you make decisions.
There was no change in the second task, which required little thought.
