Why You Should Be Napping

The benefits of napping
With age come changes in the structure and quality of our sleep. After about age 60, we have less deep (slow-wave) sleep and more rapid sleep cycles, we awaken more often, and we sleep an average of two hours less at night than we did as young adults. It was once thought that older people didn’t need as much sleep as younger ones, but experts now agree that’s not the case.

Regardless of age, we typically need seven-and-a-half to eight hours of sleep to function at our best.
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So if you’re not getting enough sleep at night, what about daytime naps? Or does napping disrupt the sleep cycle, ultimately yielding less sleep and more daytime drowsiness? 


Studies Say Napping Is Important
These questions were addressed in a recent study by researchers at the Weill Cornell Medical College in White Plains, N.Y., and published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (February 2011). The authors concluded that napping not only increases older individuals’ total sleep time—without producing daytime drowsiness—but also provides measurable cognitive benefits.

Studies have shown that when people are put into an environment that lacks any indication of time, they will fall into the long sleep at night/shorter nap during the day pattern. Thus most of us are daily competing with our body’s natural circadian rhythm.

Sleep deprivation causes a host of bodily and mental ills, keeping us from performing at our best and enjoying life to the fullest.

While a good night’s sleep is essential, a daily nap can buoy us up when we’re not getting quite enough winks. And for those who already sleep well at night, a nap can take take the performance of your body and mind to the next level.

The study
This small but well-designed study involved 22 healthy women and men ages 50 to 83 who agreed to be evaluated in a sleep laboratory. During a one- to two-week preliminary period, participants kept sleep logs at home and wore monitors to track their nighttime movements. They were then brought into the sleep laboratory for three nights and two days and given a thorough sleep evaluation (using polysomnography and other techniques) and a battery of cognitive tests.

After this initial laboratory session, participants started a month-long daily napping routine at home: half took short (45-minute) naps, and half took longer (two-hour) naps. After the second and fourth weeks, all returned to the lab for repeat assessments.

The results
By study’s end, total sleep time had increased by an average of 65 minutes in the participants assigned to two-hour naps, and by an average of 20 minutes in those assigned to 45-minute naps.

Participants found it harder to adhere to the two-hour nap schedule, but neither long naps nor short naps disrupted nighttime sleep or led to daytime sleepiness. Napping increased the time spent in slow-wave and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, which are thought to play important roles in restoring the body and brain.

Whether they took long naps or short naps, participants showed significant improvement on three of the four tests in the study’s cognitive-assessment battery.

Additional Studies
A NASA study found that a 40 minute nap increases alertness by 100%. Other studies have found that a 20 minute nap is more effective than either 200 mg of caffeine or a bout of exercise.

Yet another study showed that pilots who were allowed to take a 25 minute nap (while the co-pilot manned the controls!) nodded off fives times less than their nap-deprived peers. They also made less errors during take-offs and landings.

A study done with Greeks found that those that took a 30 minute nap at least three times a week had 37% less risk of dying from a heart-related condition.  Among working men their risk of death was reduced 64%!

Napping Recommendations
It is advised that the afternoon nap should be over before one gets into deeper sleep.

Naps can be typed in three different ways:

• Planned napping (also called preparatory napping) involves taking a nap before you actually get sleepy. You may use this technique when you know that you will be up later than your normal bed time or as a mechanism to ward off getting tired earlier.
• Emergency napping occurs when you are suddenly very tired and cannot continue with the activity you were originally engaged in. This type of nap can be used to combat drowsy driving or fatigue while using heavy and dangerous machinery.
• Habitual napping is practiced when a person takes a nap at the same time each day. Young children may fall asleep at about the same time each afternoon or an adult might take a short nap after lunch each day

While it is less important where or when you take a nap, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we all need to take them.  Napping lowers our risk of heart disease, helps us to think more clearly, helps us to lose and/or maintain a healthy weight, and boosts our immune system. 

The bottom line; we need to slow down and find 20-30 minutes each day to nap.  It will help us feel more energetic and delay the onset of illness. 

Sources
http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Education/Factsheet_CircadianRhythms.htm

http://artofmanliness.com/2011/02/07/unleash-the-power-of-the-nap/

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/napping

http://harvardpartnersinternational.staywellsolutionsonline.com/HealthNewsLetters/69,W0911c

http://health.wikinut.com/Afternoon-Nap-or-Siesta-is-Good-for-Your-Health/35r9ohf-/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6354855.stm