SLEEP ESSENTIALS: NAP FOR
BETTER HEALTH
Why a 20-Minute Nap Could Change Your Life
Three benefits some
short shuteye provides other than helping you be well rested.
While your boss may not
appreciate the snoring in the office, the truth is that well-timed sleep
actually boosts your effectiveness as a worker. “A brief mid-day nap can reduce
levels of fatigue, improve reaction time, promote learning, and improve coordination,”
says Michael A. Grandner, Ph.D., instructor and a member of the Center for
Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania.
There is, however, a
right and wrong way to grab some quick shuteye. Try to sleep as close to the
middle of the day as possible, preferably 8 hours after you wake up, says
Grandner, or else it will be more difficult to go to bed at night. Ideally your
snooze should be 20 to 30 minutes — it’s best for regulating brain functions
and keeping you from feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck when waking up
from deeper sleep. Keep reading for three sound reasons to rest your eyes right
now.
Improve Your
Memory
A 2012 Northwestern
University study showed participants could play a recently learned song on a
keyboard more accurately after it played in the background of their afternoon
nap. The reinforced tune helped consolidate the memory, making it more easily
reactivated when awake, according to the study authors. Wondering why we’re
pushing a catnap in place of simply a steaming cup of coffee to motivate your
noggin’s memory? According to a University of California San Diego study,
people did significantly worse in memory exercises when hyped up on caffeine
compared to people who slept in the middle of the session.
Additionally, UC Berkeley
research shows that memorised facts are briefly held in the brain’s hippocampus
before being sent to the prefrontal cortex for more permanent storage, which
occurs during your Stage 2 sleep, or the point you reach in a 20-minute nap.
Without this transfer of memories, your hippocampus “fills up” like your
voicemail inbox and wouldn’t be able to hold new information, meaning a siesta
preps you for learning more stuff, concludes the study authors.
Relieve Stress
Looks like it’s possible
to sleep your worries away: Night shift nurses who took two 15-minute naps
during 9-hour work shifts reported feeling less stress and tension in a recent
Japanese study.
The researchers noted that if the medics followed a stricter
snoozing schedule during their breaks, they would feel the napping benefits
more strongly, such as feeling more alert. Need more convincing? In a study
from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, students who dozed after taking a
mentally taxing math test had significantly lower blood pressure and thus
higher cardiovascular recovery than those who stayed awake.
Lose Weight
Immobility as a sort of
calorie-burner? This sounds too good to be true. “What we know about sleep and
weight loss, the more sleep-deprived you are, the less likely you are to lose
weight,” says Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., author of The Sleep Doctor’s Diet
Plan: Lose Weight Through Better Sleep. If you’re consistently shorting
yourself on pillow time, taking a longer, 90-minute nap that encompasses a full
sleep cycle will help lower your sleep deficit and positively alter your levels
of hormones ghrelin and leptin, making weight loss more likely, Breus says.
Leptin tells your brain
when you’re full, while ghrelin gives you an appetite. Studies at the
University of Chicago and Stanford University found that when participants
slept less, leptin levels decreased while ghrelin increased, meaning the men
felt more hungry and craved high-carb foods 45 percent more than those who got
more shuteye.
That is all -
David
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