The American inventor Thomas Edison (the one behind the light bulb) already knew that closing your eyes for a moment is very smart. But you only have to sleep for a while—otherwise, it won't work.
Edison, therefore, held a ball in each hand when he took a nap. As soon as he fell deeper into sleep, his muscles relaxed, and the ball slipped out of his hand and fell to the ground. That sound woke him up again, and he was actually more awake than before: he was more creative than before his nap. Such a 'power nap' of a few minutes puts the brain in exactly the correct position to come up with innovative solutions and ideas, says sleep researcher Sebastiaan Overeem (TU Eindhoven).

0:00 What is an Edison nap?
0:22 What phases of sleep do we have?
1:40 How do you measure creativity?
2:42 The different test subjects
3:19 How can sleep make you more creative?

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