Ep062: Napping: There Is More Than Meets the Eye

 
www.deepintosleep.co
 

WHAT WILL WE LEARN

Napping offers several health benefits. Taking brief naps during the daytime has proven to increase alertness, improve memory performance, and increase creativity. But when does napping become a threat to our health? In this episode, I will discuss things you should know about napping rather than just being part of our cultural habits.

  • 01:36 Honor your culture, honor what your body needs

  • 04:11 Five different types of nap

  • 07:54 How taking a nap can lead to some health issues

  • 09:29 Napping and its benefits

  • 10:25 How long a nap should be?

  • 11:48 Night time sleep matters

  • 12:55 The best way to how and when to take a nap

RESOURCES

  • Deep Into Sleep Podcast

  • Facebook Group

  • Sleep Foundation's Article about Naps

  • Research Articles Cited in This Episode

    • Molzof, H. E., Petrov, M. E., & Lichstein, K. L. (2020). Late-Life Insomnia. In Geriatric Practice (pp. 267-278). Springer, Cham.

    • Scullin, M. K., & Bliwise, D. L. (2015). Sleep, cognition, and normal aging: integrating a half century of multidisciplinary research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(1), 97-137.

Thank You for Listening!

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Transcripts

0:00

 

Hey, Happy Thanksgiving. Welcome to deep into sleep Episode 62. This is Yishan. I know it's the holiday season, it's the end of a very challenging 2020. So because it's a holiday, I know a lot of you may have some vacation time and may be able to relax a little bit from this busy time of the year. Since it's still not safe out there. I know many of us are still gonna stay at home. Doing a staycation on this holiday. When we stay at home without a lot of work to do, what do we tend to do? Sometimes we may relax too much, we may nap too much. So I want to use this chance to chat about napping a little bit. Actually, naps is one of the most common questions I get from people. Taking naps, is that normal or not? Is that good or bad? How long should I nap? If I slept poorly last night, can a nap today help me? 

 

 

1:16

 

To answer these questions, I have to pull in some cultural factors, what the research says and what my clinical practice is, what we do normally, in our clinical practice. Hopefully, the information will be helpful to you. So first, is taking a nap normal or not? So personally, I grew up in China. And Chinese culture is a culture that enjoys napping. I remember when I was a child, my whole family had this habit of taking a noon nap. I remember I would go to school in the morning, come back home and at noon, eat lunch, and then use the alarm clock to take a very short nap. And then wake up and go to school in the afternoon. My parents did the same thing. They either come back home for a noon nap, or they actually take a nap in their workplace. For example, my dad is a doctor, in his room he has those operation beds for patients. And he and other doctors just went to take a noon nap on that kind of bed at noon, when the whole hospital closed for a lunch break. While I was in high school, it was the same. We all had a lunch break, and we ate lunch. If we live far away from home, then we just take a nap in the classroom or in the dorm tree at noon. Growing up in such a napping culture, and never even questions whether napping is normal or not. Because that's what everyone does. And I did feel great in the afternoon after a short rest at noon. So I remember the first year or two I came to America for graduate school, it was so hard for me because no one takes naps at noon. And there is no even lunch break. Everyone keeps on working and some classes even scheduled around noon time. So it took me a long time to adjust because I feel so sleepy. During the noontime during the early afternoon. It has been my habit built up for so many years. And now I have to adjust to a new culture that does not really promote noon nap. But eventually, my body adjusts to it. So I would say don't worry about whether a nap is normal or not. I would say honor your culture, honor what your body needs. If you think noon nap it's a cultural thing and it is helpful. You really like it, then go ahead do it. If your body benefits from it, then do it. 

 

 

04:11

 

Actually, Sleep Foundation has an article that gives naps five different categories based on the function they serve us. So the first category is recovery nap. That means if we did not sleep enough the night before, then when we feel tired or sleepy the following day, we can try to take some recovering naps to help us catch up on sleep a little bit. The other type is prophylactic nap. This means we take a nap ahead of time to prepare for sleep loss that we know is going to happen, especially for night shift workers. We always recommend them to take some scheduled naps before or during their shifts in order to prevent severe sleep loss, so they can stay alert while they are working. The third category is the appetitive nap. That means we take naps just for fun just because we enjoy it. Sometimes I do take short naps like that. And at noon, I just enjoy laying on the bed, resting, or nap a little bit. I did not feel really sleepy, but I'm able to fall asleep. And it just really makes me feel happy. So it's really just for relaxing, it's for a better mood for a better energy level when we are awake. The next category is the fulfillment nap. That mostly means for children, especially younger children younger than five years old, they do need a much longer length of sleep than most adults. And they do tend to take a lot of naps during the day, which is very normal. So fulfillment naps mean for younger children, parents can help them schedule some naps throughout the day to help them gain enough sleep. The last type is essential naps. That means when we are physically sick, physically unwell and our body does need more sleep. We all have this experience when we are catching a cold when we are having a fever. We may feel really weak, dizzy, then we may want to lay there, and we may fall asleep actually very easily even if it's daytime. Because our body is sending signals saying I'm sick and wounded. I need to sleep to help recover the whole body and in the sleep to really battle with the bacteria. So the more sleep I get, the faster the body possibly can heal. So that kind of nap is essential. 

 

 

07:21

 

So we know naps are common among certain cultures. And often it's commonly observed among older adults. But is nap really good for our health or bad for our health? So let me share some research data with you. This question actually can be quite complicated. And I would say napping can bring both some negative consequences for us, but also some positive consequences. 

First, how taking a nap may hurt us? So a lot of research shows, taking a nap during the daytime may hurt our sleep quality, which means the more naps we take during the day, the more fragmented our sleep becomes at night. Also, we always know if we take a lot of naps during the day, then we are not sleepy during the nighttime. It hurts our sleep drive, making falling asleep harder. So sometimes daytime napping can contribute to nighttime symptoms of insomnia. Quite a lot of research did find some negative health consequences for napping. For example, frequent daytime napping could be a risk factor for increased accidents like falls or hip fractures. Also, they're quite some meta analyzes, studied by different data cohorts, found daytime napping could be associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality, and also associated with more depression and diabetes, even lower quality of life in both men and women. Quite scary. 

 

 

9:29

 

But there is some good news also, according to some really large longitudinal data from different countries such as British, China, Mediterranean countries, they find actually, napping during the daytime may have some survivorship benefits, especially for older adults. Also, there has been a lot of research showing how a single nap or a short nap can help us improve our cognitive performance. And also could serve as protective factors for cardiovascular events. And overall naps could improve our daytime function. So this is very conflicted. How can we understand that better? So overall, what I got from the research, tells me two things. So naps can be good and bad. But what really matters are these two factors. One is how long your naps are. Second is how long your nighttime sleep is before and after the nap. They require some data with thousands of adults showing that the short length of naps is associated with overall better cognitive functioning. Short, I mean 30 to 90 minutes. For example, CDC recommended that, based on scientific evidence, our brains actually do benefit from brief periods of naps. Napping is not relaxation, it's actual sleep, for us to recover from fatigue, to help us restore our alertness. CDC data saying is even very short naps 15 to 30 minutes long can already help us increase our alertness. So they talk about how long a nap should be and what they can do to us. 

 

 

11:48

 

Then why nighttime sleep matters to how we nap and how nap impacts us. Because some data shows if our nighttime sleep is kind of short, that we may not sleep enough, then having some short data napping can be more a protective factor for our health. But if our nighttime sleep is already very long, like more than nine hours, then we take more naps during the day that may serve as more of a risk factor for us. But remember all these research data are not causality. It's not like sleep or nap cause health consequences. It's really just associations and there are a lot of other factors that are impacting our health in general. So take this data reasonably, but overall, considering what research finds how we approach that clinically. 

 

 

12:55

 

Here I want to give you some very general guidelines I gave out to my patients, which also are shown up in some guidelines in the research literature. So overall, if a person asked me how I should take a nap during the day that best helped me. I would suggest maybe considering taking a short nap and take them earlier in the day. Why? short nap I would recommend taking it less than 30 to 40 minutes. Because if you take a nap too long of more than 30 or 40 minutes, then very likely you will enter deep sleep, you will enter a deep sleep stage. And once you enter that and wake up from it, you may feel really drowsy and even more sleepy. That's not a good feeling when you wake up. So keep your naps short. Also, if your nap is short and earlier in the day, it will be less likely to interfere with your sleep drive at night. That means you can still benefit from this nap during the day. But you can sleep, you can still sleep okay at night. Also remember you want to take your naps in bed. That way your brain remembers and associates bed with sleep. So on this coming holiday, if you want to take a nap, hopefully, these suggestions and research can help you to make a decision. If you want to share with us your napping habit, for example, is that helpful to you? Or not helpful to you? What kind of adjustment you are doing to your naps. We would love to hear that. Please feel free to leave me a message, email me or write it in the review so I can read your comment. So this is today's episode, thank you for tuning in. I'm going to take a short nap after I record this and hope you have a wonderful holiday and enjoy this beautiful time of the year. Relax well, rest well, and see you next week. 

 

 

15:19

 

Sleep is an individual thing. We all sleep differently, and there is so much we can do to improve sleep quality. Keep hope and carry on. This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not include the practice of medicine or other health professional services. The usage of the information we share is that the listeners own risk. And our content does not intend to be a substitute for any medical and professional services, diagnosis, and treatment. Please seek professional health services as needed.

 


Yishan Xu, PhD, DBSMnap, power nap, napping, sleep habit, daytime sleep, nighttime sleep, siestaComment