The Power of Power Naps

POWER NAPS CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

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Feeling groggy, tired or unmotivated in the afternoon? Using coffee, soda and energy drinks we often try to push through the dreaded long day yawning through the hours and fighting the fatigue. But just so happens that the solution is the very thing we’ve been trying to avoid all day long, sleep. The truth is, the power nap is perhaps the most effective way to rejuvenate our brain.

Lack of sleep

There are four main stages of our sleep cycle. The first two are relatively light sleep, while the third brings us into a deep slumber. The final stage known as rapid eye movement or REM for short, is where most of our dreams begin. The benefits of napping are tied to length of time in which we are asleep. Naps thirty minutes in length generally only allow time to enter the first stages. In stage one, slow eye movement begins and if woken we often feel as though we didn’t even sleep. But as we continue into stage two, our brain begins to inhibit processing and ignores external stimuli that it deems non-dangerous in order to relax us and give us a tranquil sleep. It also begins memory consolidation, in which information we learn is processed. Waking at the end of these stages has shown benefits including increased productivity, increased cognitive function, enhanced memory, boosted creativity and most importantly, feeling less tired. Beyond thirty minutes we enter stage three and experience something known as sleep inertia when awakened. This is because our body is coming out of a deep sleep, motor dexterity is decreased while grogginess and the longing to go back to sleep increases.

Dreaming- Final Stage

Many people falsely deem naps non-beneficial for themselves. But the truth is, they have simply napped too long. As the benefits of napping became clearer, many nap salons were opened throughout Japan where workers can pay to have a brief lunch time nap on a daybed to increase alertness at work. So maybe it’s about time we all start sleeping on the job a little more. Just tell your boss, “Science said so.” 

Power nap