Ideal Power Nap Should Be Between 10 To 20 Mins Anytime You Want, According To NASA
Maye as a kid you were good to go all day. But as they get older, most people feel like an afternoon nap, especially if they¡¯ve had a heavy lunch. Sometimes the best thing you could do is take that power nap and wake up refreshed. But for how long?
Maye as a kid you were good to go all day. But as they get older, most people feel like an afternoon nap, especially if they've had a heavy lunch. Sometimes the best thing you could do is take that power nap and wake up refreshed. But how long should it be?
NASA carried out research on sleep in March this year. One of the things they were looking at was how microgravity affects sleep cycles. Another was how long the best power nap should be.
Their research showed that a short nap can indeed fully restore cognitive function when you're tired, at the same rate as a full night's sleep. They found that pilots who slept in cockpit for 26 minutes (when they had the chance) showed a 54 percent improvement in their alertness, and performed their job 34 percent better than pilots who didn't get any shut-eye.
Sleep is after all a natural part of the human circadian rhythm, so there's no sense in feeling about taking a nap. But even NASA says 26 minutes may be a little too long.
"Napping leads to improvements in mood, alertness and performance in reaction times, attention, and memory," Kimberly Cote, Ph.D, Professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brock University, told Business Insider. She co-authored a similar study with researcher Catherine Milner. "Longer naps will allow you to enter deeper sleep, which will contribute to the grogginess - also called sleep inertia - experienced upon awakening and disrupt nighttime sleep."
Both Cote and NASA therefore suggest that the ideal power nap is between 10 and 20 minutes long. That gives you the benefits of a proper rest, without being groggy and sluggish when you wake up
And don't try to time yourself too closely though, just keep an appropriate length of time for you to fall asleep and wake up to work or whatever. Tracking your sleep too closely after all can just ruin your sleep with anxiety.
Anyway, is it nap time yet?
