Do daytime naps help you sleep at night?

I’m often asked if daytime naps help you sleep better at night, or not.

The answer is Yes… as long as you only nap for 25 minutes or less.

Why the time limit?

If you nap for longer than 25 minutes, your brain slows down into deeper stages of sleep. This causes two things to happen:

1. You disrupt your 24-hour sleep/wake cycle, and reset your “body clock’. This causes your body to get confused later on when you want to sleep in the night, making it harder to fall asleep, and stay asleep.
2. When you wake from a longer nap you feel groggy and disorientated because your brain has slowed down so much. It then takes a long time for you to wake up and be fully alert so you can get on with your day.

These things don’t happen if you nap for 25 minutes or less… in fact, a short nap is helpful, especially if you’re sleep deprived.

How do daytime naps help you sleep better at night?

Firstly, if you’re exhausted (which most sleep-deprived people are) your body keeps going throughout the day and evening by producing an excessive amount of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This makes you to feel strung out, on edge and moody… especially by mid to late afternoon.

A nap gives your body a break from these hormones, which helps you feel more at ease in the short term. It also decreases the accumulation of stress hormones in your system, so that by the end of the day, you don’t have to come down from such a highly stressed state. Stress isn’t just in your head; it causes a chemical reaction in your body, which affects you on many levels, including your ability to fall asleep.

For example; You push yourself through continuous bouts of tiredness all day and night, and then get into bed thinking you should be able to sleep because you’re so exhausted. But then you lay there feeling strung out and activated, wondering why you can’t fall asleep. The answer is that your stressed body chemistry hasn’t allowed the production of sleep hormones to be produced.

Another way daytime napping helps you is that it gives you some healthy, sustainable energy and mental clarity to get on with whatever you want to do for the rest of the day. This improves your productivity and outlook on life, which sets you up for a less stressful afternoon and evening, which helps you to get to sleep later on.

How do you limit a nap to 25 minutes or less?

It’s easy… simply set an alarm to wake you up 25 minutes after you lay down. When you hear the alarm, start stretching and taking some long deep breaths and you’ll soon be ready to get on with your day.

Napping in a nutshell

Long daytime naps hinder your nighttime sleep and cause you to feel groggy afterwards. Short daytime naps decrease stress, give you a positive boost and support your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep at night.

So what are you waiting for?  Grab an alarm clock and make yourself comfortable… happy napping!

Anna