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Naps?

I haven’t always been a napper, but since this semester started, I’ve taken my fair share of naps. Some days, I don’t nap at all. Other days, I’ve napped twice. I especially feel the need to nap after waking up early or working out. I’ve tried to stop taking naps entirely because of how time consuming they are, but then feel like I’m wasting time due to my lack of energy and effort, no matter how much coffee I drink. In my experience, I’ve found that naps can be beneficial, however, it depends how long they are. Like many things, I think the dose determines the damage. Sometimes, I wake up from a nap feeling even more tired than I was before and now with an entire hour of my day wasted. In order to better optimize my naps, I did some research.

I started by reading an article by the myoclinic. According to the article, naps can offer relaxation, reduced fatigue, increased alertness, improved mood, and improved performance, including quicker reaction time and better memory. However, it also lists negative effects, such as sleep inertia and insomnia or poor sleep at night. Sleep inertia is the groggy and disoriented feeling you may feel after a nap, and if you nap too long, you may not sleep as well at night, which is much more important than sleep during the day. In order to avoid these effects, myoclinic advises us to keep naps short. This means 10-20 minutes. This seemed too short to me, but I learned that shorter naps ensure that we stay in light sleep rather than deep or REM sleep. Light sleep helps us rest physically, but does not start dreams or the cleanup process in our brains. Staying in light sleep helps us feel refreshed without the groggy feeling. 10-20 minutes is also less time consuming than longer naps.

After doing some research, I’ve learned to keep my naps around 15-30 minutes in order to be most efficient. This will help me save time and hopefully keep me from feeling disoriented afterwards. In order to test this theory, I will set a timer for all of my naps, no matter how tired I am or how much free time I have. A reflection post may be coming next week.

Napping: Do's and Don'ts






Comments

  1. Andy PhamOctober 24, 2022 at 9:34 AM

    I also heard about something about that on naps. Taking a nap for around 20 minutes allows you to feel refreshed. However, naps that are around 60-90 minutes are bad because that's when your body goes into the deep stages of REM sleep. I am eager to see the results of your experiment because I know it can help many people like me who may need naps.

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