Sara Mednick
Professor of Cognitive Sciences | UC Irvine
Irvine, CA, UNITED STATES
Sara Mednick is an expert in memory consolidation, sleep, aging and brain stimulation and author of “The Power of the Downstate.”
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Biography
Sara C. Mednick is Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine and author of the book, Take a Nap! Change Your Life. (Workman). She is passionate about understanding how the brain works through her research into sleep and cognition. Mednick’s seven-bedroom sleep lab at UCI works literally around-the-clock to discover methods for boosting cognition through a range of different interventions including napping, brain stimulation with electricity, sound and light, as well as pharmacological interventions. Additionally, her lab is interested in how sleep changes throughout the menstrual cycle and lifespan. Her science has been continuously federally funded (National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense Office of Naval Research, DARPA). Mednick was awarded the Office Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2015. Her research findings have been published in such leading scientific journals as Nature Neuroscience and The Proceedings from the National Academy of Science, and covered by all major media outlets. She received a BA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, in Drama/Dance. After college, her experience working in the psychiatry department at Bellevue Hospital in New York, inspired her to study the brain and how to make humans smarter through better sleep. She received a PhD in Psychology from Harvard University, and then completed a postdoc at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and UC San Diego.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Memory Consolidation
Aging
Sleep
Pharmacology
Cognitive Science
Education (2)
Harvard University: PhD, Psychology 2003
Bard College: BA, Drama/Dance 1994
Links (7)
Media Appearances (8)
Feeling groggy in the afternoon? Here’s how to nap the right way
Associated Press online
2024-08-22
Shorter naps only include stage-two sleep, which is particularly helpful for alertness and memory, said Sara Mednick, a sleep researcher at University of California, Irvine. “It’s like putting yourself into low-power mode just for a little bit and letting your body recuperate,” said Mednick, author of “Take a Nap! Change Your Life.” Her research has found that naps work better than caffeine and a placebo to improve cognitive functioning. … Mednick recommended saving longer naps for the weekends, or when you have time to sleep a full 90 minutes. After about half an hour, you enter slow-wave sleep, which helps the body repair muscle tissue.
How to Take the Perfect Nap
Time online
2024-06-11
“We’re rhythmic animals,” says Sara Mednick, a sleep researcher at the University of California, Irvine. “Whenever you’re learning an activity, doing it regularly helps. … “When people regularly take longer naps, their nighttime sleep is similar to non-nappers,” Mednick says—so the extra rest is a bonus, instead of taking away from nighttime shut-eye. She suggests increasing your duration gradually over several weeks to get used to it. … Just napping with an alarm set for 60 minutes or a bit longer leads to a 40% increase in creativity, Mednick has found.
This Is How Our Dreams Actually Help Us With Real Life Experiences
HuffPost online
2024-05-15
Until now, many of us believed that dreams are just a series of images that play out in your mind while you sleep but according to researchers in the University of California, [Irvine] dreams can actually be key to helping us process and recover from bad experiences. … Sara Mednick, professor of cognitive sciences and lab director at the University of California, Irvine said: “This research gives us new insight into the active role dreams play in how we naturally process our day-to-day experiences and might lead to interventions that increase dreaming in order to help people work through hard life experiences.”
Study Challenges Stereotype Linking Menstrual Cycles to Negative Mood, Blames Poor Sleep Instead
Sleep Review online
2023-05-05
Menstrual cycles alone do not have a direct effect on mood in healthy young women with regular cycles, finds a new University of California, Irvine (UCI)-led study that points to sleep as the culprit instead. “There is a general belief that women are highly affected by their menstrual cycle…” says lead author Alessandra Shuster, UCI cognitive sciences graduate student and researcher in the Sleep and Cognition Lab. “But there hasn’t been a lot of research to back up that belief .…” “This is important as more than 90% of American women report only mild to moderate PMS, so we can generalize these results to the majority of women,” says co-author Sara Mednick, UCI cognitive sciences professor and director of the Sleep and Cognition Lab.
7 Napping Tips for a Refreshing Snooze
AARP online
2024-03-08
Sara C. Mednick, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine says Mednick, as long as there are not underlying health issues, a nap during the day can actually be beneficial – a way to counteract the weakening of circadian rhythms that often occurs as we age. Mednick supports a midday nap routine as a “great way to consolidate the sleepiness into one concentrated good snooze, rather than nodding off throughout the day.”
You Deserve a Great Nap
The New York Times online
2023-11-23
The best time to nap is about six to eight hours after you wake up in the morning, said Sara Mednick, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. … You may not fall asleep during your nap — or at least you may not think you have — and that’s OK, Dr. Mednick said. We are often “somewhat conscious” in the early stages of sleep, she said, but “it’s still good rest.” She pointed to a recent study that found that drifting into the lightest stage of sleep — a sort of twilight zone where your mind wanders in a dreamlike way — for even one minute during a 20-minute rest generated more creativity and better problem-solving in young adults.
This Is the Best Time of Day to Nap for a Better Memory, Says a Neuroscientist
The Healthy - Reader's Digest online
2023-10-10
“Naps are for everyone but they can especially help older adults who are not sleeping well at night,” Sara Mednick, PhD, a professor of cognitive sciences at University of California, Irvine, adds. “Studies show significant benefits of naps for executive functioning and long term memory in older adults,” she says. … Dr. Mednick advises either taking a short 30-minute nap, or a 60- to 90-minute nap. … “For the best time to nap, I’d recommend six to seven hours after wake up time,” Dr. Mednick suggests, “which is usually 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.”
The Art of the Power Nap — How to Sleep Your Way to Maximum Productivity
Entrepreneur online
2023-08-22
As Dr. Sara Mednick, [professor of cognitive science] at UC Irvine, told The Guardian, naps ideally fit neatly into our circadian rhythm (the 24-hour cycle of our bodies). The time when energy dips — body temperature decreases, cognitive processes are not as strong and you find yourself grabbing a cup of coffee — is a good time for a nap.
Articles (5)
New directions in sleep and memory research: the role of autonomic activity
Current Opinion in Behavioral SciencesLauren N Whitehurst, Pin-Chun Chen, Mohsen Naji, Sara C Mednick
2020 Over the last 100 years there has been a proliferation of research into the mechanisms of sleep that support cognition. Majority of these studies point to electroencephalographic features during sleep that are linked to plasticity and support valuable cognitive skills, like long-term memory.
The impact of psychostimulants on sustained attention over a 24-h period
CognitionLauren N Whitehurst, Sara Agosta, Roberto Castaños, Lorella Battelli, Sara C Mednick
2019 The off-label use of psychostimulants is a growing trend in healthy adults with many turning to these medications to increase alertness, attentional focus, and to help them study. However, the empirical literature on the efficacy of these medications for cognitive enhancement is controversial and the longer-term impact of these drugs on health and cognitive processing has not been thoroughly examined.
Timing between Cortical Slow Oscillations and Heart Rate Bursts during Sleep Predicts Temporal Processing Speed, but Not Offline Consolidation
Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceMohsen Naji, Giri P Krishnan, Elizabeth A McDevitt, Maxim Bazhenov, Sara C Mednick
2019 Central and autonomic nervous system activities are coupled during sleep. Cortical slow oscillations (SOs;
Morning stimulant administration reduces sleep and overnight working memory improvement
Behavioural Brain ResearchTenzin Tselha, Lauren N Whitehurst, Benjamin D Yetton, Tina T Vo, Sara C Mednick
2019 The goal of cognitive enhancement is to improve mental functions using interventions including cognitive training, brain stimulation and pharmacology. Indeed, psychostimulants, commonly used for cognitive enhancement purposes, while preventing sleep, have been shown to increase working memory (WM) and attention.
Midday napping in children: associations between nap frequency and duration across cognitive, positive psychological well-being, behavioral, and metabolic health outcomes
SleepJianghong Liu, Rui Feng, Xiaopeng Ji, Naixue Cui, Adrian Raine, Sara C Mednick
2019 Poor sleep and daytime sleepiness in children and adolescents have short- and long-term consequences on various aspects of health. Midday napping may be a useful strategy to reduce such negative impacts. The effect of habitual napping on a wide spectrum of cognitive, behavioral, psychological, and metabolic outcomes has not been systematically investigated.
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