To a young child, napping feels like an unfair punishment. However, as an adult, naps turned into a prized luxury in a culture that never sleeps. But do naps qualify as sleep, or are you wasting time on activities that aren’t helping you recharge?
A brief snooze can increase your energy and alertness if done properly. 10 to 20-minute naps put you in the ideal sleep condition for up to 2.5 hours of optimum energy increase. While naps don’t have the same health benefits as getting enough rest, they can still be beneficial.
When used infrequently, naps, usually referred to as power naps, can quickly restore your energy and focus. However, if you discover that you require a daily nap, this can indicate that you are not getting enough sleep to keep your circadian clock in balance.
In this post, we’ll look at what occurs to your body while you sleep, how often you should nap, and general advice for maximizing nap output. We wish you a lot more restful sleep in the future!
What Takes Place While You Sleep?
A healthy sleep pattern is biologically necessary. Some animals, like the koala, spend a lot more time asleep than awake. While certain creatures, like the elephant, may survive on just 4 hours every day. For individuals, scientists continue to concur that an average of 7-9 hours of sleep per night is necessary for peak performance.
The right quantity of sleep is important for your general health. Sleep helps you stay healthy by storing long-term memories and repairing your body. The body and mind are in a state of restoration while you sleep. System processes that take place while you are asleep are essential to your physical and emotional health.
While everyone’s needs for sleep are different, getting a good night’s rest is crucial in general. You can tell when you don’t get enough sleep. You notice that minor things make you more irritated, upset, or possibly even angry. When you are fatigued or preoccupied, you are more likely to make mistakes.
Let’s take a closer look at the stages of a sleep cycle in order to completely comprehend the distinction between a nap and sleep.
Sleeping Cycle Stages
There are four separate sleep stages, according to researchers. By observing brainwave frequencies, eye movements, and muscular activity, each stage is distinguished from the next. Non-REM sleep refers to the first three phases of the sleep cycle. Rapid eye movement, which takes place during this vivid dream state, is referred to as REM sleep in stage four.
Stage 1
Your brain frequency has slowed down slightly in the early stages of sleep compared to when you are awake. Your respiration rate has not changed at this time, and you can still see noticeable twitching motions in your muscles. In this level of sleep, you are easily awakened and may even question if you were actually asleep.
Stage 2
Your body’s temperature drops a little bit as you enter stage two. Your heart rate and respiration have both slowed down. Your eyes are no longer moving, and your brainwaves are now spiking. In Stage 2 of the sleep cycle, the majority of people spend roughly 50% of their time asleep.
Stage 3
When you reach this stage, your sleep is at its deepest. Your breathing and heart rate have slowed to their lowest levels. The brain frequency has reached delta wave status, and the body is in its most relaxed state.
The Sleep Foundation claims that Stage 3 of the sleep cycle is when the mind and body are renovated and restored. Memory, insight, and creative thinking processes are fed while a person is in this deep sleep period. Here, biological growth systems are boosted and immunity is increased.
Stage 4
The word “REM sleep” refers to the fast eye movements that occur during this period of sleep. Except for the muscles that regulate your lungs and eyes, all of your muscles are catatonic. Your respiration rates are irregular and unexpected, just like your eye movements.
In this state, your brainwaves mimic those of a fully awakened person. Other stages of dreaming are possible, but REM dreams are the most spectacular and vivid. Most likely, this is brought on by the increased frequency of brain activity.
Confused? Watch the video below to hear sleep scientist Matthew Walker explain the stages of sleep in a straightforward manner.
The length of sleep cycles
It can take between 70 and 120 minutes to go through all four stages of sleep in its entirety. The duration of each stage of sleep is shorter in the early cycles. The duration of each sleep cycle likewise increases as your daily allocation of sleep does.
You might anticipate anywhere from 3 to 6 cycles in a single uninterrupted sleep session. As you proceed through the sleep cycle, the amount of time you spend in each stage shifts. For instance, stage one has the shortest cycle times, with a maximum of 5 minutes.
With a range of 10 to 60 minutes every cycle, stages two and four are where you spend the most time. Stage three comes in second place, with a restorative lockup lasting, on average, 30 minutes. A lot of factors, such as age, stress levels, and alcohol use, will affect these periods.
The Right Way to Nap
Have you ever woken up from a nap feeling even more exhausted? You’ll probably concur that there is an incorrect method to nap if this is the case. After all, shouldn’t napping help you feel less sleepy?
What transpired during your slumber, then, that led to the unexpected result of feeling even more exhausted and groggy? There’s a good chance that your nap turned into too much sleep. You simply stayed up too late and entered stage three of the sleep cycle.
The key to taking a nap well is to keep it brief.
The likelihood of progressing to stage three increases with nap length. Your mind and body have essentially slammed on the brakes and stuck into reverse when you are awakened during this deep sleep.
You’re disoriented and have fuzzy vision; you won’t be able to clear your head for at least a half-hour. As you attempt to stand up and move around once more, you can even experience muscle tightness. All of it is a result of the complex engineering and mechanics of the human body.
It makes sense that being awakened in the middle of repair can be so harmful because stage three of the sleep cycle is the crucial restorative stage. Your body didn’t have time to return to normal operating temperatures, which prevented you from performing at full capacity.
The electrical boost that the body receives after finishing the sleep cycle’s check-up cycle was not supplied to muscles. If you wake up in the third stage of sleep, your chilly, rigid muscles will still be hesitant to respond. Your snooze has now become a risk to you and those nearby due to this and a delay in your reaction time.
To avoid falling into stage three deep sleep, take brief naps, no more than 20 to 30 minutes. It will feel like you slept for four hours if you awaken before stage three. According to Sleep Foundation studies, a 10-minute nap gives you 2.5 hours of energy and alertness.
Quick Nap Stats
1. Skipping lunch will not stop your body’s innate predisposition to feel drowsy afterward.
That feeling of fatigue in the middle of the day is not caused by your meal. The battery in your circadian clock is at its lowest charge at two times of the 24-hour day. The first one happens around three in the morning, and the second one happens around two in the afternoon.
If either of these times falls inside your wake pattern, you may have the urge to sleep. The greatest thing for your mood may be a little snooze following a nutritious lunch that is high in protein and carbohydrates. The best part is that studies have shown that quick power naps enhance your capacity for clarity, creativity, and decision-making.
2. Taking regular naps can cut your chance of dying from cardiovascular problems by up to 37%.
A practice that includes a 30-minute nap three times a week considerably lowers your risk of dying from poor cardiovascular health, according to a multi-year study conducted by researchers in Greece. Some medical professionals think that include a few naps in your weekly routine can help lower high blood pressure. Nothing beats a siesta in Europe!
3. You can get the benefits of a nap without really falling asleep if you take a relaxing pause.
Some cultures do not approve of taking naps at work, and not everyone has the luxury of relaxing for an extended nap after lunch. However, you can utilize your downtime by engaging in some stress-relieving meditation. It has been demonstrated that relaxing and unwinding, even if you don’t sleep, can help drop blood pressure.
4. Think about taking a prophylactic sleep to get oneself ready for a longer awake period than usual.
You will have a 10-hour window of peak performance and energy if you take a 90-minute nap prior to an extended wake period. By fueling up beforehand, it will be simpler for you to maintain your alertness during the double shift. Before a long event, getting a good night’s sleep on a schedule will assist prevent sleep deprivation’s effects.
