In today’s day and age, a majority of adults all over the world suffer from some form of sleep deprivation. We have listed unconventional sleeping techniques for better sleep, natural products to induce sleep, food products that can help you sleep better and sleep postures that are ideal to stay asleep. But despite these efforts, many adults still face difficulty in either falling asleep easily or staying asleep all night. This could be a result of the busy and stressful lifestyle we all lead. To overcome this, studies now suggest that napping for a short duration during the day can make you more productive and active.

Types of Power Naps

Humans like to sleep. The problem is that we cannot easily fall asleep even if we want to. Resultantly, we discovered that power naps can help us get through our day when a wholesome sleep at night couldn’t be achieved.

Based on common napping patterns, there are three types of napping:

• Habitual napping: When you take a nap at the same time every day that your internal clock automatically puts you to sleep at that given time.
• Emergency napping: When you are extremely tired and get some shut-eye for an instant energy boost.
• Planned napping: When you prepare to nap during the day even before you are actually sleepy. This usually happens in anticipation of staying awake late at night or waking up really early the next day.

Benefits of Power Naps

Given this, doctors recommend that humans should nap only 20-30 minutes during the day. The benefits are:

• 30-minute nap enhances productivity.
• A small nap has the power to keep you alert for a few hours right after waking up.
• If you have stayed up all night, the brain’s decision-making power gets compromised. Napping during the day can help rest the brain to make you sharper and reduces the chances of mistakes.
• Improves health by reducing blood pressure and damage to the arteries.

Does Napping Have Any Negative Effects?

The internet might tell you napping is good for you because Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and George W. Bush took naps every day. However, much like everything in life, napping when done in moderation has lasting benefits but when unregulated can attract a lot of health issues. What can happen if you nap for more than 30 minutes?

• Sleep inertia - the feeling of grogginess and disorientation when you wake up can make you less productive and affect your overall performance.
• Affects night sleep cycle - sleeping for long hours during the day only means your body is going to stay up all night. This shifts your normal sleep cycle and thereby attracting sleeping disorders.
• Increase laziness - Sleeping can make you lazy and unproductive. If you spend a day in bed, it’s not uncommon that you lose the motivation to be productive. In light of this, the main ill effects of napping are that it can easily induce laziness.

How to Nap Right?

• If you want to incorporate napping in your daily schedule, make sure you give yourself not more than 30 minutes to get the right amount of sleep.
• Do not nap closer to nighttime/bedtime as it can ruin the whole point of sleeping at night.

You don’t have to nap every day to feel productive. Work on improving your sleep quality at night so you don’t have to rely on napping. But if your lifestyle and work demand otherwise, set aside a schedule to nap every day, at least till your body gets used to it.