The Nuance
The Science of “Sleeping on It”
Experts say if you want to harness sleep’s problem-solving powers to the fullest, think about your dilemma just before bed
Thomas Edison appreciated a good midday snooze, and the great inventor’s quirky napping routine has become legend. By most accounts, Edison liked to settle into a comfortable chair with a ball bearing in each hand, and metal pie pans at his feet. After dozing for a while, Edison’s hands would relax and the ball bearings would clatter into the pans, waking him up.
All this was not without purpose. Upon waking, Edison would immediately write down whatever thoughts came to him. His belief was that many of his most inspired ideas came to him in the dozy, dreamy moments that precede deep sleep, and his napping program was designed to harness more of this creative energy. A new study in the journal Psychological Science suggests Edison was onto something.
For the study, researchers at Northwestern University presented people with a series of carefully designed, sneakily tricky puzzles. The participants had two minutes to try to solve each puzzle. During those two minutes, a unique sound clip would play on a loop in the background. (New puzzle, new sound clip.)
