2 Science-Backed Ways to Recover From a Bad Night of Sleep

Counting Sheep: We all deal with a bout of bad sleep now and then. Functioning properly the next day can feel impossible, as both our brains and our bodies feel sluggish and exhausted. But new research suggests there are two effective ways to help our brains work better the next day (and not one involves downing a pot of coffee).

How to Do It: Researchers kept 54 adults awake for 30 hours, and split participants into three groups. After the bout of sleep deprivation, one group took a 90-minute nap, one group cycled for 20 minutes at a moderate to vigorous intensity, and the other group sat on a stationary bike, neither napping nor pedaling. Then, all of the participants were shown several images — three days later, they all took a memory test on those images. The nap and exercise groups both performed better than the no-intervention group, though the neural mechanisms driving this differed between the two groups. 

The Benefits: Napping and exercising after being sleep-deprived protected memory in different ways. Exercising appeared to help the brain encode new information more efficiently, due to increased attention from physical activity. Napping decreased mental fatigue and sleep pressure before the memory task, which may have helped support memory performance.