Biology:Nap

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Short description: Short period of sleep during typical waking hours
A man napping in a hammock, on a patio in Costa Rica

A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to drowsiness during waking hours. A nap is a form of biphasic or polyphasic sleep, where the latter terms also include longer periods of sleep in addition to one period. For years, scientists have been investigating the benefits of napping, including the 30-minute nap as well as sleep durations of 1–2 hours. Performance across a wide range of cognitive processes has been tested.[1]

Benefits

Sara Mednick conducted a study experimenting on the effects of napping, caffeine, and a placebo. Her results showed that a 60–90-minute nap is more effective than caffeine in memory and cognition.[2]

Power nap

Main page: Biology:Power nap

A power nap, also known as a Stage 2 nap, is a short slumber of 20 minutes or less which terminates before the occurrence of deep slow-wave sleep, intended to quickly revitalize the napper. The power nap is meant to maximize the benefits of sleep versus time. It is used to supplement normal sleep, especially when a sleeper has accumulated a sleep deficit. The greater the sleep deficit, however, the more effective the nap.[3]

Prescribed napping for sleep disorders

It has been shown that excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) can be improved by prescribed napping in narcolepsy.[4] Apart from narcolepsy, it has not been demonstrated that naps are beneficial for EDS in other sleep disorders.[4]

Learning and memory

Research suggests that shorter, habitual naps after instruction offer the most benefits to learning.[5][6] The benefits to alertness show no change based on duration of the nap for combating post-lunch dip, even for naps as short as 10 minutes.[7] Napping enhances alertness in young adults and adolescents during afternoons’ performances, which affect efficiency.[8] Additionally, pre-teens who nap regularly during the day demonstrate better sleep at night. In younger children, napping increased drowsiness even while improving memory recall.[9]

For students of all ages, napping during the school day showed benefits to reaction time and recall of declarative memory of new information, especially if the naps remain in slow-wave sleep, i.e. less than an hour in length.[10][6]

Alertness and fatigue

The circadian cycle plays a role in the rising demand for daytime naps: sleepiness rises towards the mid-afternoon, hence the best timing for naps is early afternoon[11][citation not found] Twenty- to thirty-minute naps are recommended for adults, while young children and elderly people may need longer naps.[12][13] Research, on the other hand, has shown that the benefits of napping depend on sleep onset and sleep phasess rather than time and duration.[14]

Negative effects

Sleep inertia

The state of grogginess, impaired cognition and disorientation experienced when awakening from sleep is known as sleep inertia.[15] This state reduces the speed of cognitive tasks but has no effects on the accuracy of task performance.[4] The effects of sleep inertia rarely last longer than 30 minutes in the absence of prior sleep deprivation.[16]

Potential health risks

A 2016 meta-analysis showed that naps longer than an hour may be associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome or death.[17] There was no effect of napping for as long as 40  minutes per day, but a sharp increase in risk of disease occurred at longer nap times.[17]

Habitual naps are also an indicator of neurological degradation such as dementia in the elderly, as reduction in brain function causes more sleepiness.[18]

On sleep disorders

For idiopathic hypersomnia, patients typically experience sleep inertia and are unrefreshed after napping.[19]

Best practices

How long and when a person naps affects sleep inertia and sleep latency: a person is more likely to benefit in terms of those two points when they sleep moderately in the afternoon. According to research, the degree to which a person experiences sleep inertia differs in different durations of nap. Because sleep inertia is possibly resulting from awakening from slow-wave sleep, it is more likely to happen when one has a longer nap.[20] Sleep inertia is less intense after short naps.[21] Sleep latency is shorter when a nap is taken between 3 and 5 pm, compared with a nap taken between 7 and 9 pm.[22]

According to The Sleep Foundation, Psychology Today and Harvard Health Publishing, these are the best practices for napping:[12][23][13]

  • Setting up a sleep-friendly environment.
  • Understanding physical needs
  • Setting an alarm in order to prevent the negative impact of sleep inertia and sleep latency

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Alertness management: strategic naps in operational settings". Journal of Sleep Research 4 (S2): 62–66. December 1995. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2869.1995.tb00229.x. PMID 10607214. 
  2. ↑ "Comparing the benefits of caffeine, naps and placebo on verbal, motor and perceptual memory". Behavioural Brain Research 193 (1): 79–86. November 2008. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2008.04.028. PMID 18554731. 
  3. ↑ "Temporal Placement of a Nap for Alertness: Contributions of Circadian Phase and Prior Wakefulness". Sleep. 1987-07-01. doi:10.1093/sleep/10.4.313. ISSN 1550-9109. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "The role of prescribed napping in sleep medicine". Sleep Medicine Reviews 7 (3): 227–35. June 2003. doi:10.1053/smrv.2002.0241. PMID 12927122. 
  5. ↑ "Naps in school can enhance the duration of declarative memories learned by adolescents". Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience 8: 103. 2014-06-03. doi:10.3389/fnsys.2014.00103. PMID 24917794. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "The Relationship Between Midday Napping And Neurocognitive Function in Early Adolescents". Behavioral Sleep Medicine 17 (5): 537–551. February 2018. doi:10.1080/15402002.2018.1425868. PMID 29388804. 
  7. ↑ "Post-lunch nap as a worksite intervention to promote alertness on the job". Ergonomics 47 (9): 1003–1013. July 2004. doi:10.1080/00140130410001686320. PMID 15204275. 
  8. ↑ "Brief naps during post-lunch rest: effects on alertness, performance, and autonomic balance". European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology 78 (2): 93–98. July 1998. doi:10.1007/s004210050392. PMID 9694306. 
  9. ↑ "The recuperative value of brief and ultra-brief naps on alertness and cognitive performance". Journal of Sleep Research 11 (3): 213–218. September 2002. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2869.2002.00299.x. PMID 12220317. 
  10. ↑ "A daytime nap containing solely non-REM sleep enhances declarative but not procedural memory". Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 86 (2): 241–247. September 2006. doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2006.03.005. PMID 16647282. 
  11. ↑ Stampi 1992; Bertisch as cited in Bilodeau 2021.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Napping May Not Be Such a No-No" (in en). 2009-11-01. https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/napping-may-not-be-such-a-no-no. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Sleep-wake patterns and subjective sleep quality of day and night workers: interaction between napping and main sleep episodes". Sleep 12 (5): 439–448. October 1989. doi:10.1093/sleep/12.5.439. PMID 2799217. 
  14. ↑ "Role of Napping for Learning across the Lifespan". Current Sleep Medicine Reports 6 (4): 290–297. December 2020. doi:10.1007/s40675-020-00193-9. PMID 33816064. 
  15. ↑ "Are you awake? Cognitive performance and reverie during the hypnopompic state.". Sleep and Cognition.. Washington, DC: American Psychological Society. 1990. pp. 159–175. doi:10.1037/10499-012. ISBN 1-55798-083-7. 
  16. ↑ "Sleep inertia". Sleep Medicine Reviews 4 (4): 341–353. August 2000. doi:10.1053/smrv.2000.0098. PMID 12531174. 
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "J-curve relation between daytime nap duration and type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome: A dose-response meta-analysis". Scientific Reports 6 (1): 38075. December 2016. doi:10.1038/srep38075. PMID 27909305. 
  18. ↑ "Exploring the nap paradox: are mid-day sleep bouts a friend or foe?". Sleep Medicine 37: 88–97. September 2017. doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2017.01.019. PMID 28899546. 
  19. ↑ "Narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnolence". Clinics in Chest Medicine 19 (1): 169–81. March 1998. doi:10.1016/s0272-5231(05)70440-8. PMID 9554226. 
  20. ↑ "Benefits of napping in healthy adults: impact of nap length, time of day, age, and experience with napping". Journal of Sleep Research 18 (2): 272–281. June 2009. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2869.2008.00718.x. PMID 19645971. 
  21. ↑ "Napping Behavior in Adolescents: Consensus, Dissents, and Recommendations" (in en). Sleep and Vigilance 5 (2): 189–196. 2021-07-28. doi:10.1007/s41782-021-00155-3. ISSN 2510-2265. 
  22. ↑ "How to interpret the results of a sleep study". Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives 4 (5): 24983. January 2014. doi:10.3402/jchimp.v4.24983. PMID 25432643. 
  23. ↑ "Ultimate Napping: A How-To Guide" (in en). Psychology Today. 5 June 2010. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/minding-the-body/201006/ultimate-napping-how-guide. 

External links

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