Is sleep good for everything? Scientists hate giving unqualified answers. But the more sleep researchers look, the more the answer seems to be tending toward a resounding affirmative.
The slumbering brain plays an essential role in learning and memory, one of the findings that sleep researchers have reinforced repeatedly in recent years. But that’s not all. There’s a growing recognition that sleep appears to be involved in regulating basic metabolic processes and even in mental health. Robert Stickgold, a leading sleep researcher based at Harvard Medical School, gives a précis here of the current state of sommeil as it relates to memory, schizophrenia, depression, diabetes—and he even explains what naps are good for.
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