To Nap or to Rest? The Influence of a Sixty-Minute Intervention on Verbal and Figural Convergent and Divergent Thinking
Open accessAbstract
Background: The relationship between sleep and creativity is a topic of much controversy. General benefits of napping have been described not only in sleep-deprived individuals and in shift workers, but also in people with sufficient night sleep. However, only few studies have investigated the relationship between nap and creativity. Methods: Forty-two native German speakers (29 females, mean age = 24 years, SD = 3.3 years) took part in two experimental sessions (i.e., baseline and intervention). In both sessions, divergent and convergent verbal and figural creativity tasks were administered at the same time of the day. While the baseline session was identical for all the participants, in the second session participants were randomized into either a sixty-minute nap or a sixty-minute rest group. Results: No significant group differences were found for neither divergent nor convergent creativity thinking tasks, suggesting that the interventions had similar effects in both groups. Interestingly, the analysis of the pooled data (i.e., pooled nap and rest groups) indicated differential effects of figural versus verbal creativity tasks, such that significant post-intervention improvements were found for the figural, but not for the verbal divergent and convergent thinking tasks. Conclusions: While further studies are needed to confirm these findings, to the best of our knowledge, such a dissociation between performance of verbal and figural creativity tasks after nap/rest interventions has not been described to date.
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Creative problem-solving is further fostered by a 60 min nap as opposed to a 60 min rest.
“Creative problem-solving is further fostered by a 60 min nap as opposed to a 60 min rest [45].”
From How Adversarial REM Dreams May Facilitate Creativity, and Why We Become Aware of Them (2024) · cites this paper as [45]
Section 2.5 reports a lack of significant differences between the nap and rest groups and says their data were pooled for further analysis. The paper therefore does not find that a 60-minute nap fosters creative thinking more than a 60-minute rest. (LLM, conf=0.90)
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How Adversarial REM Dreams May Facilitate Creativity, and Why We Become Aware of Them
Deperrois, N., Petrovici, M., Jordan, J., Huber, L., & Senn, W. (2024) · Clinical and Translational Neuroscience · doi:10.3390/ctn8020021 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Creative problem-solving is further fostered by a 60 min nap as opposed to a 60 min rest [45].”
BackgroundHow Adversarial Rem-Dreams May Facilitate Creativity, and Why We Become Aware of ThemPreprint
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Martinez-Martinez, S., Muthalib, M., Sampedro, A., Ojeda, N., & Peña, J. (2026) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2026.109264
- Authors
- Müri, R. M., Camenzind, M., Chiffi, K., Stuber, I., & Eberhard-Moscicka, A. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Bern (CH)
- University Hospital of Bern (CH)
- Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Inselspital, 3010 Bern, Switzerland
- Corresponding author
- Müri, René M.
- Venue
- Clinical and Translational Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2023-08-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 20
- ISSN
- 2514-183X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4385446828
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2
- FWCI
- 0.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Clinical and Translational Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Open Access CRIS of the University of Bern
- Funders
- Interfaculty Research Cooperation, “Decoding Sleep: From Neurons to Health & Mind” of the University of Bern (SNF-175615)
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF-175615)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Keywords
- napping, rest, creativity, divergent thinking, convergent thinking, verbal creativity, figural creativity
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