I was so surprised by this that I had to do some research. I happened to come across this article from the National Sleep Foundation that uses a statistic from a research study done by NASA. Using military pilots and astronauts, they found that a forty-minute nap is extremely beneficial. The study shows that performance increased by 34% and alertness skyrocketed to 100%.
I found the information really fascinating and I plan on doing a lot more napping in the future. I think that even if you happen to have a busy day it's worth it to take some time out of your day to refresh your mind so that you can work your hardest that day. Especially with our school day starting so early in the morning, it's crucial that we all get enough sleep. In fact, most people don't know that we actually need between seven and nine hours of sleep to fully function every day. Most teenagers in this day and age aren't getting that kind of sleep, which causes us to fall behind in most aspects of our lives. Therefore, I think it's really important that we try to get a decent amount of sleep every night to help prevent conflict in our lives.
I often find that napping makes me more tired and less willing to work. I prefer to get all of my sleep in at night and I always strive for (but rarely achieve) a full 10-12 hours of sleep. I find sleep to be a really interesting topic. We naturally put ourselves in a coma-like state and experience weird hallucinations, often without remembering it.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and my mom say the same thing, Liam, about naps making them too tired. I wonder if there's a scientific (physical) reason why some people find naps helpful and others find them counterproductive. Or is it psychological *insert thinking emoji*
DeleteI am a nap queen. My family (and my husband) thinks it's weird, even moreso that I still do it as an adult, but I get really sleepy in the afternoon, and I just love the cozy feeling of drifting off when I'm super tired and it's quiet and still light out. It's like, in the afternoon I'm sleeping because I WANT to, not because it's bedtime. Does that make sense? It's like it's just that much more enjoyable because it's a choice I'm making.
ReplyDeleteI also find it very interesting that just the length of the nap can drastically change how you feel when you wake up. Although the length of time is highly dependent for each person based on their own personal sleep cycles.
ReplyDeleteLike Sydney said, it all depends on the length of the nap and a personal's individual sleep cycles. Most of the time, when I take naps, I end up being way more tired than I was before hand. For me to take an efficient nap, I need to be willing to set aside like, an hour and a half, one because it takes me forever to fall asleep, even when I'm exhausted, and two because it tends to seem that I need a bit more extra time to feel rejuvenated. It's so weird to me that some people can just, sleep for like 15 minutes and feel better.
ReplyDeleteI also recently started taking short naps after school. Some days I just feel extremely tired when I get home and can’t get anything done. I find that when I take short naps, it helps so much in terms of productivity. If I nap any longer it just makes me more tired. I find it interesting how it varies from person to person, such as how some people are more tired after short naps.
ReplyDeleteI don't take naps because usually I am exhausted after, but I never actually focused on sleeping for a certain amount of minutes.
ReplyDelete