Curejoy Expert Janardhana Hebbar Explains:
Even though modern-day research has suggested that napping is a beneficial way to relieve tiredness, it still has stigmas associated with it. Napping is associated with laziness, a lack of ambition, and low standards. Although these statements are false, many people still don’t understand that napping actually can be beneficial to one’s health-both mind and body.
A recent study in the research journal Sleep, examined the benefits of naps of various lengths and no naps. The results showed that a 10-minute nap produced the most benefit in terms of reduced sleepiness and improved cognitive performance. A nap lasting 30 minutes or longer is more likely to be accompanied by sleep inertia, which is the period of grogginess that sometimes follows sleep.
Keep in mind that getting enough sleep on regular basis is the best way to stay alert and feel your best. But when fatigue sets in, a quick nap can do wonders for your mental and physical stamina. Naps can help restore alertness, enhance performance, and reduce mistakes and accidents. A study at NASA on sleepy military pilots and astronauts found that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34% and alertness 100%.
Naps can increase alertness in the period directly following the nap and may extend alertness a few hours later in the day. It also offer psychological benefits and is an easy way to get relaxed and rejuvenated in a short period of time.
Naps improve your working memory. This type of memory is involved in working on complex tasks where you have to pay attention to one thing while holding a bunch of other things in your memory.
Napping improves your memory retention; during sleep, recent memories are transferred to the neocortex, where long-term memories are solidified and stored.
Napping prevents burnout and reverses information overload. While we often refuse to take a nap because we feel like we have too much to do, studies have shown that putting in extra hours without rest dramatically reduces your productivity.
Napping heightens your senses and creativity. Napping can improve your sensory perception as effectively as a night of sleep. It also improves your creativity by both loosening up the web of ideas in your head and fusing disparate insights together.
Napping improves health. Sleep deprivation leads to an excess of the hormone cortisol in the body. Excess cortisol increases glucose intolerance and abdominal fat, weakens the muscular and immune systems, stymies memory and learning, and decreases levels of growth hormone and testosterone in our bodies.
Bur, in spite of these benefits, napping isn’t always the best option for everyone. For example, some people have trouble sleeping any place other than their own bed, making a nap at the office or anywhere else unlikely. Other people simply have trouble sleeping in the daytime; it could be that certain individuals are more sensitive to the midday dip than others – those who are may feel sleepier and have an easier time napping.
If you’re experiencing an increased need for naps and there’s no obvious cause of new fatigue in your life, talk to your doctor. You could have a sleep disorder or another medical condition that’s disrupting your nighttime sleep.
