There's some good news for individuals who enjoy a good midday nap. A new study suggests that taking an hour-long nap can dramatically boost and restore brain power.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley conducted a sleep study of 39 healthy young adults. Half of the participants were allowed to nap and half were kept awake throughout the day.

They found that early in the afternoon, both groups performed at comparable levels on a rigorous learning task. However, individuals who took a 90-minute rest in the middle of the day performed better on a new round of learning exercises later in the day while those who did not nap actually became worse at learning.

Researchers say the findings reinforce their hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain's short-term memory storage and make room for new information.

"It's as though the email inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact emails, you're not going to receive any more mail. It's just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder," said the study's lead author, Matthew Walker.